Meeting Franklin

CMF (Christian Missionary Fellowship), www.cmfi.org, asked me if I could help them with a pending video project that they are trying to make to show to Youth Group student across the USA. It will be focusing on helping kids in the slums that have been effected by HIV and how the student can help. Keith Ham and I sat down yesterday to nail down a plan on how we were going to execute this 3 part video series. During this meeting Keith told me about a by the name of Franklin and how he was found on the streets and has been in MOHI (Missions of Hope International) Joska Center in class 7 for 2 months now. We decided to use his life story to portray the life of a typical orphaned teens with HIV and how MOHI has helped change his life.

After talking with Keith about the project I went down to the Social Work office to talk to Lynn. With her help I was able to meet up with Franklin this morning to get to know him better and to hear his life story. As he was telling me about his childhood my heart felt heavy for this young 14 year old boy. I can't even imagine how hard it must be to grow up in the slums as an orphan and finding out from doctors that you have HIV at the age of 7. I start filming Franklin tomorrow morning around 10:00 AM in the Mathare slums. I will try to post some photos of him in a later post.

Keith and I were trying to come up with a good title for this video series. So far we haven't come up with anything we like. I am looking for something short, sweet & would catch the attention of teenagers. I know that some of you can be very creative so I am asking for you to put on your thinking cap and try to come up with a title option. Who knows you may come up with a title that we think would be fantastic for the short film series. So, if you would like to submit a title option please comment on this blog post and make sure that you include your title option and your first and last name. I can't wait to read the title that you come up with.

Please be pray for:

• God to be with Franklin through the filming process.
• Help Franklin to be able to clearly portray his life in a way that will inspire students in the US so we can help others with similar lives.
• Give me a clear vision of what needs to be filmed to help visually portray life in the slums.
• God to be with me as I try to film Franklin's story in a way that will help students have a better understanding of what life is like in the slums as an orphaned child.
• Help me as I guide Franklin through the filming process.

The Weekend

On Friday all 6 apprentices (Meredith, Luisa, Bethany, Erin, David & I) were invited over to Doug and Jennifer Kurz's House to spend the night. We arrived at their home at about 6:00 PM and had a great time hanging out, eating a home cooked american meal, watching movies, and sleeping. In the morning they cooked us a pancake breakfast. YUMMY! After with breakfast it was time to head over to the Pangani Center for the Talent Show/Music Festival. I was in charge of trying to make sure that we video tape as much of the event as possible.

The festivities started at 10:00 AM and the award ceremony ended around 7:00 PM. Their were activities going on in 3 different rooms.

So I got a good workout running from the first location on the Ground floor to the second location on the 1 first floor to the third location on the 4th floor all day long. :) I am continually amazed on how many God given talents these students have been given. It was so amazing to have students from all 10 centers competing against each other. It is a rare occasion for all the schools to be together in one building. They were singing, dancing, reciting poems, rapping, doing spelling bees, and cultural dances. I told you a few weeks ago that I had fun watching Huruma practicing their talents and how I thought they were going to do good in the competition. Yesterday, the judges awarded Huruma the best in show trophy. I was spot on!!!

I did find time to hang out with the students as they were preparing for their performances. For some reason I am a magnet for Joska kids. Maybe it is my magnetic personality and good looks or maybe it's because I had a nice digital camera hanging around my neck taking photos all day. I did become friends with one boy in particular that I kept running into thru-out the festivities. His name was Simon, he is 14 years old and goes to school in Joska and I believe is in class 7. He is a very gifted child and loves to sing in the Joska choir, play the drums, write music, sing, dance, play Football (american soccer), and his favorite subject is English class. During our lunch break we decided to have some fun and had a fun photo shoot with him, some friends and myself. It was so much fun getting to know these guys and can tell that they have a strong future ahead of them. Check out some of my favorite shots from this shoot.

Today was our day of rest, we went to church at the Pangani Center, went out to eat at the city market, and then came home to rest. Around 6:00 PM we had our normal group debrief time with Wallace, ate dinner (Mexican Monday was moved to Sunday this week) and then went back to relaxing. Around 10:30 PM I had an opportunity to catch up with my my brother, Tyler and his wonderful wife, Amy on Skype. It was so good to see/talk to them for the first time since I have been in Kenya. I have a fruitful week ahead of me and better head to bed.