Touched by Love International partners with local individuals and organizations who are working on the ground in impoverished communities to meet the needs of orphans, widows and the forgotten poor. We work towards sustainability and self-sufficiency alongside these partners while helping to meet the urgent needs of those in their care. Sometimes TBLI will undertake a larger project with a partner, like the reparation of a roof or the building of a home. These projects are always partner-led and prayerfully chosen. Below you can read about our dear and beloved partners. We hope your hearts swell with love and encouragement in response to their stories and their work. Ours certainly do!
Bethesda Childcare Centre
Bethesda Childcare Centre is located in Nakuru County, Kenya. It is directed by Pastor John Kamau and his wife, Elizabeth. In their home, they care for almost 50 children of various ages. This dynamic team loves on these littles ones as if they were their own. It is their fervent hope and desire that as these children grow older, they will transform the lives of others. Together with several staff members, this team rescues children who have been abused, abandoned, or severely neglected. They are known by the Kenyan government as a reliable resource to care for traumatized children with professionalism, compassion and love. They receive regular calls to rescue young children from the dump, a ditch, the bush, etc. John and Elizabeth and their staff carry these children to the Bethesda home, treat their malnutrition and wounds, bathe and clothe them and love on them. The children receive schooling and Biblical teaching. Staff members are well-trained and John receives regular training in areas such as children abuse prevention.
It is our hope that John will attend next year’s Christian Alliance for Orphans summit with TBLI if circumstances allow. There, not only will he receive valuable training and resources that he can take back with him to help with his ministry, but he will also be afforded the opportunity to meet with others and discuss the issues that he faces with a coalition of fellow African OVC (Orphan and Vulnerable Children) caregivers. In 2021, if all goes well, TBLI will also receive certification in Trauma-Care Training, which we will bring to John and others like him, to help his staff learn how to better handle the behaviors and attachment issues that typically arise in children that experience such devastating trauma as those in his care.
Bethesda has been blessed to have a fairly good financial backing by their denomination which has allowed them to recently move from their very cramped quarters to a newly built home with a yard for play and for growing much of their own produce!
Hands of Relief
We first met with Shem Asuma at the office of Hands of Relief in January of 2018 after a year of regular correspondence. Shem evaluates where the greatest needs are in the poorest regions of Nakuru County and has established relationships with others within his community that can assist with donations of food and clothing. Volunteers assist Shem with the distribution of items — mostly done on foot due to lack of resources. Shem checks in regularly with those assisted by the program to ensure their needs are being met. He has great respect and admiration among his people because of his selfless acts of love done in Jesus’ Name.
Hands of Relief seeks to offer a helping hand to families and individuals hit hard by poverty while giving more focus to those who have been affected by HIV/AIDS. They do so through several initiatives including the following:
1. The Family Empowerment Initiative is dedicated to impacting families disadvantaged by social and economic circumstances. This initiative is focused on enabling poor households to enhance and develop their quality of life and become architects of their future by presenting opportunities for spiritual, educational, and economic transformation. The initiative focuses its efforts on direly destitute households. Currently Shem is training several women on how to start their own soap-making business.
2. The Sacks of Hope Initiative aims at ensuring HIV/AIDS-affected families struggling with nutrition are able to keep their immune-systems strong by having a constant supply of nutritious food.
3. Water Hygiene and Sanitation aims at training and sensitizing families on safe water collection and storage and also clean hygienic methods of operation around the home to help the community reduce the occurrence of water borne diseases.
4. The Relief Bank Initiative. At one time the face of this particular need was a tattered-looking homeless man. Today the faces have changed to include a family where the adult is terminally ill and skips meals to afford medication, or a child who barely has one meal a day. The Relief Bank is where Hands of Relief stores the graciously donated food, clothes, shoes, books, and more for distribution to the very needy. The bank identifies destitute individuals who lack basic needs and tries to address those immediate needs. Those served by the Relief Bank include:
-Families experiencing emergency setbacks
-Child-headed households that lack basic needs
-Terminally-ill, bedridden individuals in the slums
-Early childhood centers with no basic items
Finally, Hands of Relief seeks to empower individuals and families through sustainability measures. This includes: Household empowerment initiatives, youth and women empowerment initiatives including vocational training, market-driven community micro-enterprises, and livestock and poultry projects.
The EYE Centre
The EYE Children’s Centre was born in 2011 out of Vincent Ojiambo’s vision and mission to bring relief to Kenyan children and youth living in the Kibera slums in Nairobi. The goal is to mold and model these beloved children into active and responsible members of society. Situated in a community overwhelmed by extreme poverty, unemployment, semi-literacy, and the HIV/AIDs pandemic, the EYE Children’s Centre offers orphans and vulnerable children a place of refuge where they can receive a hot meal, basic education, shelter, clothing, and the opportunity to be a child through games, sports, and fun days outside of the slums.
The center started with one orphaned girl and now serves 50 children. There are currently 18 children staying in the children’s home who are fully under their care, in addition to the dozens of children indirectly cared for under an umbrella support program. With the help of five volunteers who serve periodically, the EYE Center offers educational programs for primary and secondary students, a sponsorship program, shelter for homeless children, games and athletic opportunities, talent nurturing, peer education, children’s rights awareness forums, guidance for teens through adolescence and into adulthood, health education and HIV/AIDS awareness, community cleanliness and hygiene awareness, vacation Bible school and the opportunity to hear the gospel in a daily setting.
The hope of the leaders of the EYE Center is to one day afford to purchase land outside Kibera on which to build a safer, more permanent structure to house and school the children they serve and to have the opportunity to create a self-sustaining center.
The Zimbabwe Boys Home and Life Recovery Ministries
The Zimbabwe Boys Home and Life Recovery Ministries is an organization run by a passionate man named Tinofaro Rusike with the help of his wife Faith and their three children. They lead a church in one of the poorest communities in Zimbabwe called Epworth. This is a community which is deeply impacted by HIV/AIDS, prostitution, substance abuse and trauma. This ministry directly serves over 50 children ages 3-20 and seeks to empower and train roughly 30 caregivers including young mothers.
They work to empower those in their care through education, sports, mentorship, vocational training, and Income Generation Activities and Saving clubs. Through the local church, they offer drug recovery support to the community and work to reverse the tide of domestic violence, offering trainings for men on what godly fatherhood looks like in the family. They work to discourage child marriages through orphan care and offering young women the opportunity to learn a trade.
The Zimbabwe Boys Home also has a school feeding program that seeks to meet the daily nutritional needs of the children in their community.
The Bridge Ministry
The Bridge ministry in Nakuru is directed by a faithful pastor named Samuel Mwai. The center empowers children who live on the streets and in the slums through education, skill training and entrepreneurship, family reunification endeavors and an extensive feeding program. There is a strong focus on spiritual training, Bible study and life application skills.
In 2018, the Bridge ministry reintegrated twenty-seven boys back home successfully! Despite facing the challenges of transportation and harsh conditions in their homes, all has gone well for these boys. Praise the LORD! Six older boys were given the opportunity to receive vocational training in Machakos County and are now in their second year. A small business was begun for two other boys who now are able to pay rent for a house. In addition, almost 2000 children from the slums and on the streets were fed through the feeding program offered by the Bridge and over 200 children gave their lives to Christ through this ministry in 2019.
Since our meeting in 2019, Sam has been able to make strong connections with other organizations in addition to TBLI and was able to purchase land and build a facility! We praise GOD for this development and are currently working to find ways that TBLI can best help the Bridge ministry in conjunction with their new partnerships.