and being able to achieve his or her dreams without limitations or segregation.
Furthermore, I get a lot of joy from seeing MCF children surrender their lives to Christ and embrace His righteousness. This restoration of souls for Christ gives me extreme joy.
Happiness is the greatest blessing that God has given to the children of MCF, and that’s what we endeavour to sustain. The truth of this blessing made a strong impact on me in July 2013 when I listened to a very emotional testimony from a medical doctor who decided to help us.
This doctor came to us with a team of professionals and other volunteers. The team set up a free medical camp in MCF Ndalani to attend various patients, especially those from the community around MCF who were unable to access medical care. This doctor struggled with the realization that he was coming to meet and help needy and suffering children in Africa. He had never been to Africa before. But he had heard of it as a place full of suffering and sadness. And so he had prepared himself to offer both medical and, as a counsellor on family matters, psychosocial services.
The doctor admitted to me that before he boarded the plane to Nairobi, he had in his mind a picture of suffering, crying, sad and very sick people who needed a lot of material and moral support. He came to Kenya thinking that he was going to meet a very dejected and suffering population.
But when he arrived in Ndalani, he was surprised that the so-called needy and suffering children were instead very happy, making a lot of noise while playing with each other in the field and running all over the compound. These children lined up to sing and welcome the Canadian team. And when the children went for devotional services, they sang melodious songs and danced with joy.
The doctor did not meet depressed and miserable faces as he had expected. He was taken aback. He wondered how children with a sad past, no parents, no proper clothing and no shoes were able to be so happy. He even contrasted the MCF scenario with the well-to-do society of the Western world where he said children were given virtually every material thing that they desired in life—good shoes, food, cars, housing, a good education, luxurious holidays—but they were habitually unhappy. He said that as a psychologist and motivational speaker, this scenario had been bothering him for many years.
He revealed to me as we chatted outside the MCF Ndalani Medical Clinic, “I thought I was coming here to help alleviate the suffering of these children and other community members, but I have instead ended up being helped by them. I have realized that happiness has nothing to do with material possessions. It has nothing to do with social class. It’s all about accepting God and allowing Him to dwell in you in spite of the circumstances you are in. I now know that one can be happy, regardless of what they own or do not own.”
The doctor and the other volunteers, in conjunction with the MCF medical team, helped to treat hundreds of Yatta sub-county residents. The 10-day exercise took place from July 2 to 12, 2014. It saw over 2,000 people from the Ndalani, Yatta, Kithimani, Sofia and Matuu areas given specialized diagnoses and the treatment of various ailments such as malaria, typhoid, fever, body pains, common cold and arthritic related complications, among other diseases. Specialist doctors were also on hand to handle issues related to dental and eye problems.
Their team leader, Annie, said they were in Kenya to use their medical skills to give back to the society. She said, “We thank God for the various skills and knowledge that He has given us, and we want to be useful to the suffering people of God.”
All of this caused me to reflect on what God has accomplished in my life. As a child, I would never have predicted my life would have turned out the way it has. Who could possibly have imagined that all this could happen? And yet, when I think of the greatness of God—how awesome, powerful and loving He is—I see how His faithfulness has made everything possible.
Chapter Two: Humble Beginnings
It is amazing to realize all that God has accomplished in my life from where I began. It reminds me that God is never limited by our circumstances.
I was born on January 7, 1949, in Kathithyamaa village in Kangundo, Machakos County. I am the firstborn among ten children, nine boys and one girl. Our childhood was very difficult because our poor parents could hardly provide for us.
We lived from hand to mouth, one day at a time. My father, Daudi Kaleli, was a squatter with no land of his own. He occasionally worked on farms with my mother, Rhoda Mukina, in order to feed us. In most cases, whenever they could not provide for us, we had to seek other means of survival for ourselves elsewhere.
In an attempt to cope with our difficult life, my father would often stay away from home. He would only come back at night, and often very drunk. He developed violent tendencies, which added more domestic problems to the already existing ones.
Our clothing was nothing more than tatters. Our housing was ramshackle. I led the life of a street child. The only difference between me and the present-day street children is that I never roamed around in town streets or sniffed glue. Still, I had many similarities with them. I regularly begged for food from neighbours and wandered a lot in the village, to the point that I became a nuisance. Some children from well-to-do families laughed at me as I asked for something to eat from their parents. It was humiliating. But I chose to be ashamed and embarrassed rather than to die of hunger.
When I was six years old, my parents left for Molo in the then Rift Valley province to search for employment. They hoped to earn a living by doing menial jobs in the expansive agricultural farms. I was left in the care of an aunt, who was also very poor. Together with my siblings, I led a life of begging for food from neighbours and other well-wishers. It was not an easy thing to do. But the survival instinct has a strange way of helping to overcome feelings of shame. I regularly moved from one relative to another seeking help, just trying to hang on in life, doing nothing more than existing.
My day started with standing under a scorching sun. I would eat sugarless porridge on those rare occasions when we were able to have something to eat. I would then plot my next move to find some manual job to do in the village. Some days we found work and eventually got some food. But often there were no jobs. And that meant no food.
Despite the harsh economic and social challenges that surrounded us, I had a burning ambition and desire to succeed and make a difference in my life and the lives of my family members. So I tracked the whereabouts of my parents to the city of Molo, where my father was working in white colonial settler farms. Here I started class (grade) 1. But life continued to be unbearable. Not only did we not have food or clothing, my drunken father had sunk even deeper into alcoholism.
I returned to Kangundo a year later and joined the Kyamulendu primary school. I later transferred to Kathithyamaa, where I lived with my relatives. By the grace of God, I was able to complete primary education (grade 8) in 1966 at the age of 17. Unfortunately, I never proceeded to secondary school, due to a lack of money for the fees.
With so many struggles, I began to lose hope in life. I felt that my fate on earth had been sealed—that I was bound to suffer throughout my entire life. I developed a feeling that I would never progress in life. I saw myself as doomed.
I even contemplated committing suicide.
But little did I know that God had good plans for me. He had a purpose for my life. He had designed me to carry out a specific calling.
Yet all of this would happen only in His perfect timing.
During that period of suffering and confusion, a friend invited me to a church event taking place in the nearby town of Kangundo. I decided to go, even though I was not born again and had little interest in the Word of God. I was raised in a society where the Bible was hardly ever mentioned. God was not on my
