Nairobi Marathon - Quite an Event

Dear Friends of KKV,

Sunday, October 25 was a great day for the KKV running team. What a difference from last year, when I ran alone in support of Kings Kids Village. This year was great fun and fellowship from beginning to end. It also helped that I was not running the grueling 21 k, but instead ran the 10 k. The guys and gals in the team were so excited to be running with a purpose beyond themselves. Our youngest runner was Miles Mutegi, the son of our chair person of Friends of KKV Club. He and his mom ran/walked the 3k family fun run. What a great day it was to enjoy some good exercise and fellowship.

I will be able to give a better picture of how much we were able to raise when we meet again on the 7th for our Annual KKV Fun Day, where we will honor our running team and take some more pitures of our runners.

As for all the rest of you who are reading this, it is still not too late to contribute to our runners as they raise money towards the building of our new KKV Learning Center and Office Complex.

Also, if you have not done so yet, you can also join our new Facebook group called "The Friends of KKV Club"

Hope to see you on the 7th of November

Jon

BIG EVENT COMING UP

Dear Friends and Family of KKV,

We are really getting excited and trying to say the same about getting into shape ahead of the up and coming Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon coming on October 25th, 2009. Last year I completed the 1/2 Marathon in my best ever time.. Of course it was my worst ever time as well. My very first time. This year, I have not beaten the trail as much as last year and am striving to get ready for the 10K run.

This year is also exciting, because we have put together a team of participants who will join me in running and also raising support for KKV's building project.

There has been confusion about the fund raising side of things, so what we are doing is raising money for every Kilometer we run, not necessarily at the Marathon, but within the next month...

Also, we will be having one of the members of a missions team from the US join us that day. We are excited if not still too out of shape for this thing...

If you are a praying person, do so for us..

Jon, on behalf of the KKV Running Team

Friends of KKV is on Facebook

Dear Friends,

We are excited about our new friends who are joining everyday and learning more about us and how to connect with what we are doing here in Nairobi... If you have not joined the "Friends of KKV" Facebook group yet, do so today.

Freinds of KKV is an existing "Club", a grass-roots movment that started locally in Niarobi with the expressed purpose of making KKV 80% locally funded by the year 2018. By puting ownership of the group on Facebook, we are extending the invitation to people accoss the globe to give a little each month to see these orphans raised up to succeed in life. The idea of many people giving as little as one US Dollar a month is entirely possible when you use a social networking environment like Facebook.

Facebooking is really in here in Nairobi these days. It's a generational thing... Pictured is our Chrissy, multi-tasking as she Facebooks...

So, lets make this thing happen. If you would like to give a

few Dollars a month, let us know and we'll give you options accoring to what part of the world you live in.

Thanks in advance for standing with us and the orphans under our care.

Jon and Molly Stern

Kings Kids Village

On Air over Adoption

This past week has afforded Molly and I the privilege of being hosted on a Christian radio talk show here in Nairobi to explore the subject of having a passion for adoption.Adoption is something we obviously feel very strongly about, having done it ourselves. I know we are known to many people as being passionate about orphans and orphanages. That is true... but this week for us has brought into renewed focus the very reason we got into orphanage ministry in the first place.

It all started for us when we were sent to a borderline slum area in Nairobi to plant a church in January, 2000. The HIV/AIDS endemic hit us in the face as it were and we were forced by that to seriously pray and think about what we could do to join the army of people who are working to relieve the suffering of a sub continent... It didn't take us long to be overwhelmed by the immensity of the pandemic. So we booked an appointment with a senior official in the Department of Children's Services of the Kenya Government to ask her from her perspective how we could best help address this need and suffering. Her answer was immediate and challenging. She said that if we really wanted to help the situation in the long run the best option is to adopt a child. Her reasoning was this: Since there were at that time 1.3 Million orphans in Kenya and the total number of orphans being cared for in orphanages was only approximately 25,000, the only conceivable way to stem the tide was to change the culture of Kenya to be one of accepting and embracing adoption on a massive scale. Our influence by adopting would perhaps serve as a catalyst for cultural change one day... So we adopted twins in 2002... And that is why we were also excited to be on air talking about adoption to a Kenyan, mainly Christian audience.
If you have any questions about adopting a child either as a Kenyan or as a foreigner, please refer to the information we have posted on the right hand side of the blog. There is enough information for you to get started in the pursuit that may one day revolutionize the nation. May if be so, in Jesus' Name.

Also, many thanks to Anne Mbotela, the presenter who hosted us... You're the best!

Jon and Molly

Waiting and Working

Dear Friends of KKV,

It has been a while since I updated our blog. We have been wanting to get a new website up and running and that has taken longer than expected. So we have been silent, but busy...

I have been busy working in the community along side the Department of Children's Services. I have been invited to be a part of a committee called the Locational Area Advisory Council. As a council we are empowered to represent the government to our neighborhood and to help awareness and the enactment of children's rights in our area. In short we are enabled to be our brother's keeper in regards to the safety and well being of our children.

One of the most rewarding things about serving in this council is the ability to get to know the other Charitable Children's Institutions (CCI)s in our neighborhood. What a joy it is to see others who are much less funded than KKV doing a great job out of a passion to help kids in crisis. In getting to know, we also get the opportunity to come along side and help where we can in little ways and in big ways as the Lord provides.

One of the little ways we have helped a nearby baby home is to make a sign board for the home. The sign is not only one of the requirements for registering the home, but also aids in creating awareness in the community about the home.

We hope this little gesture will go a long way in creating neighborhood support for the brave and caring Mom (Jane) a teacher who opened the home two years ago because she got a reputation for not being able to turn away children abandoned at the school where she teaches.

This coming Sunday is the official launching of the home and we hope to surprise her with this sign for her front gate... Shhhh! Don't let the secret out!!!

Jon and Molly

It is time to update

Dear Family and Friends of KKV,

I am excitedly awaiting the launch of our new and exciting interactive website for KKV. This is hopefully going to open the way for more interaction between sponsors and sponcees. If you absolutely cannot wait to see the new look,... well, you'll just have to get some patience by waiting just like I am...


This seems to be a season of waiting... We are also waiting for the ground to break as we start the construction of our Mary C. Hensold Educational Complex. We hope to break ground before mid April.

One thing that is not waiting is the continuation of our "Friends of KKV Club". We had our first ever tea on Sunday the 21st of March. The turn out was great and we accomplished our objectives for the meeting which included voting in a committee to carry the vision of the club. The members are passionate about seeing KKV support base substantially more localized in the future. To that end, we are reaching out both at the corporate and grass roots level. More about that later.

Thanks to all of you for checking us out and for doing what you do.

Jon and Molly Stern

Friends of KKV Newsletter

Enjoy!
Jon and Molly Stern
Kings Kids Village
kingskids.village@gmail.com
P.O. Box 16657 - 00620
Nairobi, Kenya
www.kingskidsvillage.net
Office tel: 020-3002123
M-Pesa: +254-714-222997

Our 2009 KKV Marathon Team

Dear Friends of KKV,

We are pleased to announce the formation of our 2009 KKV Marathon team. We are beginning our training to prepare for the October 25th running of the Standard Chartered Nairobi Marathon. At present we already have 10 guys who are interested in running and raising sponsorship for the Village.

Our target is to raise over 350,000 Kenya Shillings ($5,000.00) this year. If you are interested in joining the team, from near or far you are most welcome. We even have one guy from our home church in Illinois who is interested in coming to run with us. If you can't make it from your neck of the woods, consider sponsoring one of our runners. I can always use more sponsors as I plan to run the half marathon again...

Write me and tell me how you are going to get involved this year...

Jon for the KKV Family