New Beads

Aisha, Hawa, Safio and Erica

taking a close look at the finish of the newest glazes

being used as part of the Eastleigh Ceramic Jewelry Project

A peak into the kiln

Falastin and Aisha forming beads during the morning session of the Eastleigh Pottery training program. The first training cohort will be completing their course in May.

New colours and shapes appearing

The Eastleigh Jewelry Project is the first micro enterprise initiative of Iftin. Thanks to the support of the Eastleigh Community Centre, The Sharing Way/Canadian Baptist Ministries and generous Canadian partners in mission, we are working with the Somali women of Eastleigh to build self help support groups, savings programs, and income generating activities that will enable many of the most vulnerable families to overcome extreme poverty.

The ten women currently training with the ceramic jewelry project have been enthusiastic over the progress and proud of their accomplishments. We are praying that the training and development of the jewelry project will continue to progress and that the marketing and sales of their artwork will generate a sustainable income for these women and their families. Erica and James have been researching opportunities to market the jewelry in Kenya (They were both apart of a large sale this past weekend). We are very thankful for a few friends in Canada who have offered to display and sell the Iftin jewelry. We are praying for other opportunities to export their creations.

The work goes on as Hawa, Aisha, and Safio

laugh together around the central table

in the Eastleigh Pottery workshop.

Beads

The training has begun with the Iftin Jewelry Project.

The ladies began their classes today in ceramic bead making. They were very eager, arriving early to meet their instructors and discover more of what they will be doing in the Jewelry project.

Newly glazed beads must air dry in a rack before they can have excess glaze cleaned from the hole with a bead reamer. These beads will become bright blue and rusty brown in colour once they are fired in the kiln.

James Odera sharing with the Jewelry class.

The ladies will continue to study English in the mornings, with the Iftin classes, and join the pottery unit in the afternoons for ceramic bead training. We thank God for how so many little things have come together to make this project possible. Each of these women represent vulnerable households that are in desperate need of a regular and dependable income. We want to thank everyone who has contributed to The Sharing Way toward the "Eastleigh Urban Development projects". Without such generous support, ministries such as this would not be possible!

Nuts and Bolts

Introducing the first Iftin beads!

Hot from the kiln... we just completed our first experimental batch of ceramic beads with the Eastleigh Jewelry project. While we wait for our first shipment of imported glazes, the pottery team has been working with locally available glazes. The results have been good. Tomorrow we will be interviewing about twenty candidates from the Iftin group to make up the first group of ten participants in the ceramic bead training program -- from this group we will begin the jewelry enterprise.

hammering things out...

Most of the components and tools that we are using in the project are being made in-house. From the fine tools and measuring instruments, to the drying racks and firing bricks. Today we cut high temperature element wire and hammered it into shape to form the pins used for hanging the beads within the kiln. It is a labour intensive job.

Eastleigh made!

Even the components used within the water filtration project are produced on site. From the metal taps and attachments to the filters and housing, each part of the water filters have been designed and made by members of the community centre.

Our friend Nicholas Kamau (the second guy in wearing the blue lab coat) is an instructor with the metal work and construction sections of the Vocational Training Centre (VTC) at the Eastleigh Community Centre. He and his students were working on the metal lathe today used for producing components for the water filtration project. Each of the nine vocational training centres are focused on empowering youth with practical skills in order to help them provide a living and a future for their families. It is amazing to witness the ingenuity and spirit of optimism that people like Nick and his students share.

Back in the pottery section, more experimental glazes.

In Prayer:

* We praise the Lord for the spirit of cooperation and trust growing within the community centre between such a diverse group of people. God is not hindered by ethnic and tribal difference!

* We pray for the on going self help group meetings and for the Somali women who are being pushed further out of their comfort zones as they participate in a system of rotational leadership.

* We pray for wisdom and discernment as the first cohort is selected for the ceramic jewelry training.

* We thank God that even in the midst of our concern for Erica's mom, that it has become an opportunity for the Somali women to come around us in prayer. It has been wonderful to experience the support and empathy of our Somali friends through this time. One of the classes even made a short video to send back to Erica with love and prayers. God is good.

Better and better!

A group of young girls from the Eastleigh Community Centre's primary school dropping in for a drink of water at the Eastleigh Pottery ministry this morning.

Throughout the morning, we enjoyed seeing several children slip into the pottery ministry for peek at what we were up to and for a drink of water. Along with the traditional pottery and new ceramic beading project, Eastleigh Pottery has been very busy with producing and distributing ceramic water filters to families within Eastleigh and greater Nairobi. Throughout March, the women of Iftin will be learning about the importance of proper hygiene and clean drinking water as a first defence against common water born illnesses that are especially killing young children in places like Eastleigh and Mathare Valley. We are deeply thankful to the many churches and individuals who are contributing toward the purchase of water filter systems through The Sharing Way. Your gifts are providing clean drinking water to hundreds of people in Eastleigh! Every member of the Iftin self help groups will receive a water filtration system and be trained on how to properly use and maintain their filters over the next two months. Coming from Canada, water seems like such a common thing. But for most of the world, clean drinking water is a rare and highly valued commodity. We want to thank everyone who is making these filters a reality in Eastleigh!

Better beads!

Meanwhile the Eastleigh Jewelry enterprise continues to move ahead with Erica and the pottery crew improving their bead making day by day. We will soon be ready to move into the glazing and finishing steps of the bead production phase. Once we have the complete process ironed out, the Somali women will begin their five week training with Erica and the pottery staff.

Erica and James working on finding the best glazes.

So far all of the raw materials for the beading project have come from Kenya. The one component that we are lacking is the glaze. Kenya produces materials that create a wonderful grey and brown glaze (in fact the pottery ministry has produced some beautiful glazes of its own), but this does not satisfy the range and pallet of colour needed for jewelry. We will be experimenting with glazes that we must import from England. While we await the arrival of these glazes, we will be using some of the Eastleigh Pottery's supply.

In Prayer:

* Please keep our family in prayer as we return to the High Court in Nairobi this Friday for Ava's adoption. We are praying that everyone who needs to be there will make it and that we are not bumped from the list.

hand made

With our first batch of clay ready,

it was time to get rolling...

Erica and I shared the morning with our friends at Eastleigh Pottery perfecting our bead forming skills and selecting bead designs for our first production with the women of Iftin. The ladies will begin their turn at training in March as we begin the true production phase of the project.

How do they get that hole in the bead?

Knitting needles,.. of course!

The English Literacy program is also doing well; the second class has advanced quickly through their studies and will be writing exams early inorder to move into the new core curriculum with class three. We are very proud of the students and all their hard work!

Last Friday, we briefly met the "Women in Focus" STM upon their arrival from Canada. Part of the group will be joining us in Eastleigh in the morning as we talk about women and sports with the Iftin group. We are excited for the opportunity for the women to come together and share their perspectives on the importance and joy of physical recreation.

On Sunday, we are looking forward to meeting with Carmin MacMillan, the director of Short Term Missions (STM) for Canadian Baptist Ministries. We will be discussing opportunities for future volunteers to join the Somali outreach projects with us in Eastleigh. We are praying for people who will come and share their gifts and talents, and most importantly their love with the women and children of the Eastleigh Community Centre.

IN PRAYER:

* Please continue to uphold our family as February 27th draws near. This will be our third attempt at going before the high court for Ava's adoption. We pray that we will NOT be bumped from the list again.

* Please keep the Iftin women in your prayers. They are, in many respects, breaking the rigid mold of expectations placed upon them by tradition, wagging fingers and scornful eyes. Already some of the girls have been criticized for their involvement in everything from school to the Friday football club. We anticipate further criticism as the women gather this coming Tuesday for a vocational skills training expo that we are having with the Vocational Training Centre (VTC). Many of the women have expressed interest in extremely non-traditional jobs for a Somali women, including automotive and journalism. We pray that God will protect these women as they step forward and in many ways step out before their community.

Step by Step

James Odera, manager of Eastleigh Pottery,

tests the consistency of the new clay body recipe

for making ceramic beads.

The ceramic bead and jewelry production project is moving forward step by step. Today we completed the first batch of our new clay body after nearly six months of research and planning. The pottery staff gathered together at 7:00 am to begin the long days work of mixing, sieving, and preparing the clay for use.

Some of the pottery staff pouring the clay into mess bags. Rather than waiting several weeks for the clay to thicken in the sun, the pottery team are experimenting with hanging the clay in heavy cloth bags where it will shed water much faster than sitting in the usual drying boxes.

A bag of freshly made clay hanging to dry next to a pile of 7 tons of raw clay that our team purchased from Nyeri, near Mt. Kenya.

The project's objective is to provide skills training and employment to vulnerable Somali women in Eastleigh. We hope to begin the training phase of the project with ten women by the middle of March. Until then, we will be taking training ourselves with the pottery staff from a local ceramic beading expert. We are excited to see this enterprise reduce the number of Somali women living in extreme poverty.

Eastleigh

We have had a full week in Eastleigh not only with the ESL classes but with several new projects with Iftin. Our two most advanced classes are currently learning about the importance of nutrition and a balanced diet. As part of their class work, they have been investigating the availability of affordable produce and other local foods to diversify the diet of their households. One of the most interesting parts of the project is the collection of Somali recipes that the women of Iftin are sharing with one another. Erica is working with the ladies to bring their recipes together to form a Somali cookbook. We would love to take some back with us to Canada and make them available for anyone interested in Somali cusine to buy as a way of supporting the ladies here in Eastleigh.

Erica has also been working closely with the staff of Eastleigh Pottery in the development of ceramic bead production as a training and job creation project for the Somali women's self help groups. Please keep this ministry in your prayers as we work together over the next few months to perfect the process with the Pottery guys and the Somali participants. We know that there will be many hurdles to over come before this can be a success.


Next Week: We are excited to welcome "Nelly" to Iftin. She will be joining us as a new English teacher to help us and Zahra with the growing classes. Please pray for Nelly as she seeks to build relationships among the Somali community.



Update:

Tristan won the chess championship game yesterday. He is now the 4A chess champ! With his victory he won a cold bottle of Coke.

Yesterday during swim practice, Emma swam 50 meter freestyle. Up to this point, she has been swimming 25 m lengths. Way to go Emma!!

Mistletoe Market

Erica and James working a table for Eastleigh Pottery at Rosslyn Academy's annual Mistletoe Market.

Eastleigh Pottery is an important part of the ministry of the Eastleigh Community Centre. Not only does it provide a valuable training program in pottery for many young men and women, but it contributes revenue that helps sustain the outreach programs of the centre.

This past year, Erica and James have been working together on developing a ceramic bead project with the women of Iftin and the Pottery Ministry. It is our hope that such a project would provide a reliable and fair income to some of the most vulnerable families within this community. Please continue to pray for the ministry of the community centre and for people like James who serve in such important leadership roles within the community.

Getting into the rhythm

A female student skipping during recess

at the Eastleigh Community Centre

Today was a great day in Eastleigh with the women's ESL class showing great improvement with their participation in the classes. They are obviously putting a lot of effort into studying their vocabulary and working through the take home lessons. They are definitely getting into the rhythm!

We are also finding the new projects and programs in Eastleigh a positive change. We are very excited to see what the Lord has in store for these women as they work together. One new development has been an interest from the Eastleigh Pottery ministry to have Erica work with a group of Somali women to design and create ceramic bead jewelry with the potters. Many Somali women are very skilled artists with henna which they use to create beautiful designs on their arms and legs. Erica has begun working on the ground-work for this as an income generating project for women in the group.

Jon Hodgeson left the city today by bus to join Yattani with the school in Dadaab. Jon will be teaching in Dadaab for the remainder of the month. He should be a big hit up there, not only because he comes armed with a stack of Alive and Kicking footballs, but because he is really interested in building good relationships with the students there. We pray that Jon will have a fun and fruitful experience serving in Dadaab.

In Prayer

Please remember us tomorrow morning as meet with the social worker for Ava's adoption. His report is required for the adoption to go through.

Pray with us for the health of our students in Eastleigh. It has been very cold and wet in Nairobi for the past several weeks and many of the students have been sick.

We also pray for our colleague Andai whose home was broken into while he has been working in Dadaab this month. A neighbour has been checking in on his house and it seems that many of his personal things have been stolen.

Please be in prayer for John and Eloise Bergen; the couple serving in Kenya's western city of Kitali with "Hope for the Nations" who were attacked in a home invasion last Thursday evening. Members of their family arrive today in Nairobi to visit the couple who are recovering from multiple injuries in hospital.

Click here to read more: News Report

The potter's hands

Our friend James, at Eastleigh Pottery, is giving Tristan and Emma some pottery lessons this summer at the community centre. We are so blessed to have him sharing his talent and time with our children. He is such a gentle and godly man, it is evident that God has been shaping his life as he has given the past twenty years of his life serving this community.

Both Tristan and Emma are having a lot of fun creating beautiful things out of Kenyan stone and earth -- Emma has always had a fondness for playing in the mud, but James tells us that she is a natural potter.