One Year Away

Penny

When we arrived at the El-Shadai Family Foster Home, most of the children were home from school.  They all had a one month holiday between the end of Term 1 and the start of Term 2.  But this week, the house feels empty.  This was the first week back to school!  During the day, we only have little Gloria staying with us and Agnes who has finished high school and is waiting for the start of university in August. This week has been hectic.  Preparing 33 children for school is not an easy task.  It felt like Stephen was coming back home every night with books, pens, pencils, socks and everything else that the children need for the new term. 

Many of the day school students began classes early this week.  The boarding students took this week to put their things together and are now off to their respective schools.  All the children packed their belongings into large blue metal boxes and waited their turn as Uncle Stephen drove them to school on Thursday evening.  There were some tears but overall the children seemed happy to be going back.

So things have changed around here.  Children wake up as early as 6AM to prepare for school.  At about 7AM many have already started their walk to school.  At about 7:30AM the house is quiet.  Breakfast is served at about 9AM by Betty (she has just finished Tailoring classes) and Agnes, followed by lunch at 1PM.  With the house being so quiet, we take advantage to get some of our work done like creating budgets for the home and sponsorship profiles for the children.  By 3PM, Peace and Caesar usually return from Nursery followed by the others at about 4:30PM to 5PM.  Things at this time start to return to ‘normal’ but the 10 children that are off to boarding school are very much missed.

Getting the money necessary to send these children to school is a constant struggle for Stephen.  Many of the children have sponsors but some have recently lost theirs.  If you are interested in sponsoring a child, visit www.friendsofelshadai.com or send us an email.