Fuhomi...

Fuhomi has been making some real progress with its schools' programme in the last few weeks. They have been attending three different schools and tackling the first topic on the syllabus, which is sex education. They have been working with groups of 15-20 students.

Over time, the students are becoming less intimidated about asking questions and they are learning to be more honest and vulnerable in talking through some of the issues. This is great to see, since many young people are can be very inhibited when talking about sex. The Fuhomi schools' programme provides a forum where the young people are accepted as they are, whichever background they come from and the trainees are working hard to create an environment where the students can be themselves and develop.

The team recently received a letter from one student asking for help about a particular home situation. This is real testimoney of the growing trust between the team and the students and the Fuhomi team hope to continue to be a safe place for students to come and seek advice.

The other area of mission with which the Fuhomi team are currently involved is working with local commercial sex-workers. It is tough at the moment, because we don't have the infrastructure or resources to take the girls off the streets. We cannot yet save them from the daily injustices or offer them a safe living environment. While we continue to pray that one day we will have these resources available to us, this does not stop the team working tirelessly to bring the change that they can to the lives of these teenage girls.

The Fuhomi office in the centre of Naivasha town is slowly becoming a sanctuary where the commercial sex-workeres feel that they can come and find advice and friendship. It is so hard for the girls to trust peopel, having been exploited in so many ways throughout their short lives, but we are encouraged that the team has already established the foundation for lasting relationships with eight girls, and they are now seeking to develop further friendships.

While my sister Aimee and my friend Leonie were here, we invited some of the girls to join the team in the office and spend time together, just enjoying each other's company and having a good time. It is very hard sometimes knowing that on that very evening the girls will be back on the streets, selling their bodies for next to nothing just to survive. Sometimes just showing that you care enough to give somebody two hours being a "normal" teenager can make a huge difference. We employed a woman to come and paint the girls' finger nails and toe nails. It was something small, but something that reminds them that they are special, that they deserve so much more than they have at the moment, and that they deserve to be the women they were made to be.

Tony Campolo, a Christian Sociologist from the US, told a similar story of street girls in Haiti who approached him, hoping that he would have sex with them. He and his ministry workers took them to a hotel room and ordered as much ice cream as they could and rented every Disney film in the hotel. They gave the girls a night where they could be the fourteen and fifteen year old girls that they really were. Sometimes it is impossible to change the lives of every child and adult who suffer from desperate poverty - but if we can give them a glimpse of the love and joy of Jesus, then we should always strive to do so.