What if you were never given the opportunity to attend school?
What if you passed your eighth grade exams…but there was no chance to go to ninth grade?
Approximately 80% of young women in Kenya are unable to attend high school. Normally, high school is expensive. It is a privilege to be given the chance to further their education.
Upon arrival
Now imagine you’re an orphan. Orphaned children in Africa are crowded into small homes. These group homes have no choice but to turn the girls out to the streets at the tender ages of 12-15 years. The homes simply can’t afford to keep the girls as they enter high school age. Most will become farmers or wives at very young ages. Prostitution, rape and the sale of these girls into marriage is on the rise.
Unfortunately, we cannot do everything to stop this crisis in Kenya and Africa, but we are doing something significant by now opening our home to thirty (30) young women each year. They will attend a private international school, live in a family setting and dare to dream of a better future. We trust this is a start of a growing effect to transform the lives of an ever-increasing number of young women. We call this hub of transformation “The Bethesda House.”
One month after arriving
We need your help! My husband and I have been missionaries in Kenya since 2003. We have the opportunity to purchase five acres we live on in order to build and, in some cases, repair the existing homes on the property. We need to raise funds in order to complete this project within the next year and open the homes by January 2010. There is a great deal of work to be done!
The bottom line is we need 500 people to donate $1,000 each, simply as a one-time donation for the purchase and improvement of the homes for the girls. We also need teams to come and help with the labor and work once the property is purchased.
If you cannot contribute $1,000, perhaps you can team up with a group of friends to make that kind of donation. Or perhaps you have the means to contribute much more than $1,000. Every size of donation is gratefully accepted since $500,000 is the goal. Enlist your church, Sunday School class, missions board, or community group to get involved. Please note that every dollar of your tax-deductible donations will go to this project. Come Alongside has waived its usual administrative fees in order for this life-transforming project to go forward.
Photographs of the girls and the property are available, if you like. Further information about our project or if you wish to have monthly updates you can contact us on our web sites listed below. We thank you for your interest and support and for taking part in changing lives through our youth.
Many blessings,
Michele and Todd Ingram
Missionaries to Kenya and Africa
ingram_michele@yahoo.com
toddingram2003@yahoo.com
www.toddingram.com
Tax-deductible donations:
Please make checks payable to Come Alongside and send them to P.O. Box 722101, San Diego, CA 92172-2101. Please indicate on your check that you are designating funds to the Bethesda House to make sure your love offering is credited properly.
You may also give electronically by going to www.paypal.com and using ingramsfamily@sbcglobal.net as your access point to make a contribution by credit or debit card or electronic check. Again, please indicate the contribution is for the Bethesda House.
If you have any questions about your donations, please contact Don Toshach at Come Alongside at dtoshach@sbcglobal.net.
With your support many children can live happy, healthy lives
Without your support there is only the thought of what could be
