Mercy Home Christmas Plans

As we've been discussing BIG needs, wants and dreams it occurred to us that maybe we should work some of those in as gifts for the children (when it is actually for the children of course). 2017, 2018 and 2019 we did individual Christmas gifts for each kid. 2017 and 2018 were super stressful because we had to do all of the shopping without a lot of choices. 2019 was amazing! We had many people donate gifts and visitors brought them for each child and that was a huge blessing. The kids had a blast and we loved getting to watch them open gifts without any of the shopping duties 😂. Last year was, in my opinion, the best Christmas we've had in Kenya and while it was great we are wanting and needing to change things up this year.

Since we don't know for sure when the airports will open back up we decided to try and raise funds for a real playground. We have over 100 children in our home and only 3 swings. 😮 In addition to those 100 kids, when school is open we have another 80ish children 5 days a week and they do not even have access to those swings. In addition to those 180 kids, we have a weekend feeding program (before Covid and we will resume as soon as we can) that serves anywhere from 150 to 300 children on Saturday and Sunday. A playground makes sense and in many ways a playground is a need.

So we set up a fundraiser with a crazy high total because apparently a good playground that can support 50-75 kids at a time is expensive and as many of you know the land that we own is full. In order to be able to build a playground we need to first buy the land (that we are currently renting) and then purchase the playground equipment.

This is an old photo, but shows the land we have. We are hoping to purchase the long red rectangle to build the playground on.

Our hope is for the fundraiser to be completed before the end of December so the playground can be built by Christmas, but if not we will just wait. This is obviously a huge investment, but it will serve our children and ministry for years to come. So we are asking you to donate to this fundraiser if you would like to help provide a Christmas gift that will keep on giving for years to come. We will not be doing anything for them individually, this is and will be our only Christmas fundraiser. We will still have our special Christmas meal and Christmas day treats no matter where the fundraiser stands. 💜

Thank you for always praying for and supporting the ministry here. Our kids and village are so blessed by y'all. Just today a church member was sick, but couldn't afford to go to the Dr, because of y'all we were able to cover the $13 to have her checked out and get her the needed medications. 💜 If you have any questions feel free to ask, I have no problem answering questions, even hard ones! You can visit the fundraiser page here to learn more or donate towards this gift.