Mercy Christian Academy mission
“We provide a Christ-centered education in a safe and healthy learning environment to children in need, we equip our students with love, knowledge and skills to help them to see God’s great works through their education. Our primary focus is that they may believe the Gospel and live their lives for eternity, in response to what Christ has done and is doing.”
Background
We began MCA in January 2019. Kenya is on a year-round school calendar which begins in January and is split into three terms with a break in between each term. Currently, MCA has grades pre-K through 11th grade. We employ 17 certified teachers and 3 teachers’ assistant. We have a current enrollment of about 220 students. Less than half of our students also live at Mercy Home, the other children come from our village or nearby villages. We have been blessed by McKinney Christian Academy of McKinney, TX who donate awesome uniforms from their school to ours. It worked out perfectly that we have the same initials as them, so the monograms fit our school!
It is our desire to be an authentic Christian school and not Christian in name only. We begin every school day with a chapel service, end every school day with a Bible study, and teach catechisms (A catechism for Girls and Boys) throughout the week. In pre-k through 5th grade we are using a classical Christian curriculum by Rafiki Foundation and we plan to add a new grade level each year until our entire school is using this amazing curriculum.
Community Impact
Even though the public-school system in Kenya is said to be free, schools are allowed to charge several fees for various purposes such as enrollment, desks, exams, and a PTA so they can hire extra teachers. Allowing these fees actually turns the teachers into bill collectors, often sending their students home until their family has the money to pay. With such a high number of people living in extreme poverty around us, many children either do not attend school or their educations are interrupted often which is not fair to the child.
We have been blessed to be able to enroll about 150 children from our village and other nearby villages. These are all children that come from very difficult backgrounds of poverty. They were not attending school or their education was often interrupted because they were being sent home due to fees, leaving them very behind in school. We have one boy attending MCA whose step-father would pay fees for his biological children, but not his step-son. So, the boy, desperately wanting to attend school, was getting up early every morning and working late hours every evening, collecting and carrying water to sell so he could pay his own school fees. Having Mercy Christian Academy allows us to step in, help out, and make a real difference in many lives.
We also assist several students to attend other nearby schools. We are fully aware that we cannot provide an education to every child near us, but we see and know the importance of education. It is our desire to work more with the public schools around us as God provides. We would love to see every child get an education and not miss school due to their family situation or not being able to pay the fees.
*We do allow some of our employees’ children to attend MCA, this is done on a case by case situation.
Gallery
“We are so thankful to everyone supporting MCA through prayers and donations. We wish each of you could get the chance to see first-hand the tremendous impact you are having on these children and their families!”