The Death of Jane, and the Life of Peris, or This is Africa
Bob met Jane last year while visiting some of our students’ homes. He found her lying on a floor mat in her Tuwani hut, dying alone amid chaos and filth. Jane had six kids, aged 5 to 17, all with a different father. When the one man that stayed with her died of AIDS, his family blamed her for his illness and left her rejected and without help. Two of her daughters, Lucy, 11yrs, and Mercy, 8yrs, attended our Primary school; the older siblings were out of the house somewhere, and Meshak, 5 yrs, was by his mom’s side.
The school staff helped us to get Jane to the clinic, and convinced her to get tested. It was confirmed she had TB and AIDS, so we made sure she received the meds. We left for the US, but heard she was bouncing back, and had returned to the Graceway family and her faith. It was the kind of success story that makes you feel once again like it’s all worth it. These kids got their mom back, if even for a few years, and we were so thankful!
Yesterday was Jane’s burial.
Last week we heard from staff that little Meshak, now in baby class at the Care Centre, had shown up at school dressed only in his mother’s blouse, filthy and hungry. Peris, one of the cooks, later told us the story: She had 100 shillings, and Wyckliffe, the school social worker, had another 10. She washed Meshak, then went across the street to buy the boy some clothes to wear. His older brother Peter happened to walk by, so she asked him why the boy was in such a state; he answered, “we have no soap, no water, no food.” So when Anne, our Liason/Social Worker showed up, she went with Wycliffe to visit the mom.
They found Jane in a terrible state, and determined the kids would have to be removed from the home for their safety. Tuwani is not a good place for children to roam unprotected. Peris took Meshak home for the night, then two days later, sent him home after school, following close behind. She let him see his mom, and when he came back, she then went in the house. Jane was too far gone to get help, and she knew it. She had taken the meds for a while, then last year the prices of maize doubled and tripled. Though the meds were free, she could no longer eat well enough for her body to handle the strong drugs, so she quit taking them, in order to function. She also returned to brewing chang’aa and the nasty lifestyle surrounding it. Tuwani is actually full of thousands of women in the same predicament.
Jane asked Peris to take Meshak, saying, “I have nothing to give him.” In old Kenya, this is the way it is done. If there is no responsible family member to take the children, a neighbor will usually do it. We found out that Peris had actually known Jane for 8 years, before Meshak was born. She lived near Peris in Lessos, was married and attended Graceway. But after her husband died, her life turned a corner. Peris tried to get her to take her meds, and gave her food when she asked, but Jane chose to go on her own without advice or help.
Jane’s older children (now orphans) are Peter, 15, Esther, 16, and Maina, 17. Maina began attending Graceway last year after his mom’s initial rescue, and found a new family there. He and Peter had spent the last two years struggling to find food for the children and rent for their mom; neither lived at home, but stayed somewhere in Tuwani. When his mom died, Maina went right to Graceway, so we heard while we were in the service (while another young man was thanking the members for their support during his recent wife and child’s deaths). The need was announced, and the poor church once again gathered up what resources they could to help pay the expenses. In Kenya, if the family can’t pay for the coffin, mortuary, and food for the many guests, the community tries to step in. Services are usually held every night for up to a week before the burial, and friends and relatives are expected to come by. But there was no money for the mortuary, so Jane was buried two days later. We chipped in quietly so they didn’t know muzungus were involved (they would have done nothing and expected us to pay it all).
The funeral was held in her childhood village, Sirende. Like Tuwani, Sirende has a very bad reputation of drunkenness and violence. Peter says Tuwani has improved in the last few years and is now better than Sirende. We were eager to go to the burial, not only because of Jane and the kids, but also because our recent travels with the US team had made us unable to attend any of the burials, or carry our part of the grief of several tragic deaths in the Graceway family. The taxi came so late, everyone was leaving the service; I was so upset I yelled at our driver Steven in tears. That was when I realized how all this death and tragedy was affecting me. I’m just not used to it, death in America is occasional, and all very neat and tidy. I am not nearly as strong as these people. I apologized to Stephen, and he was gracious.
Sirende was on the other side of town, and back in the bush a bit. A local pastor welcomed us into his house, and we joined our Graceway friends, who performed the burial service, and the family members. We took a family picture.
Little Meshak was smiling proudly; he now had a secure, loving home, and was looking “very smart” in his new suit that Peris bought him. “I paid 1800 shillings”, she said proudly, (well over a week’s pay). Lucy and Mercy were close to their mom, they were quiet. We met Peter and Maina there; I shook their hands, but Bob gave them a big fatherly hug. Maina didn’t want the hug to stop, he clung to Bob like a small boy who had never been hugged before. We also met Esther. Peris said she is HIV positive, and very ill. She has a young baby, who is also positive; she was very thin and very drunk.
In fact, most of the people at the burial were drunk. Many had travelled from Tuwani to go to the burial, which was ironic because they had never bothered to help Jane at all when she was ill and dying. Peter told us the bizarre details today. They arrived to find the body in the house of Jane’s older brother, where the people were viewing the casket in one room and brewing changa’a in the other. They got increasingly drunk as the service went on, jeering Rose and Peris as they sang. When the casket was lowered, they dropped it the last few feet; as they tried to pray over the grave, one drunk began intimidating Pastor David, yelling at him to “sing!”, and throwing dirt at everyone around the grave. They had to take the kids and leave the site without finishing the service. The crowd only became quiet when Pastor Peter spoke. The text was Proverbs 23, about how drunkeness will ruin your life. He said, “I would never have thought to preach on that at a funeral, I couldn’t believe they were listening.” Seven people, young and old, raised their hands to receive Christ, Maina being one of them.
When we squeezed in the taxi with Rose, Peris, and the three young children, they were reminded to return the skirt and flip flops they borrowed for Mercy; the ladies changed her back into her normal raggy skirt, and we left, Peris shaking her head that no one cared enough to dress the girls properly for their own mother’s funeral. She coddled Meshak all the way home, thrilled with the chance to be his mom. She told me more about the children’s life, and her plans to get them all tested for HIV. I then realized that, despite the difficult transition it would be for the girls, this was a rescue for these kids, and I began to be thankful. The atmosphere they lived in was unimaginably dark; they ran free much of the time, and only went to school because Maina forced them to go, knowing it was their only hope.
We all went to Peris’s home, which is two small 3-room apartments in a typical Kenyan rowhouse, the 2nd apartment added for the kids’ sleeping quarters. The house was neat, the cement walls partially covered with lace cloths, calendars, and Sesame Street crib bumpers. Peris and Haron have six kids of their own, from 6 yrs to 17; they pay outrageous school fees for the three in secondary school, and one in upper level primary. Haron is the night watchman for the school, so he stays up all night, then in the morning goes to wash clothes for someone. Peris gets up at 5, prays with friends, then gets to school early to start preparing the beans. She loves working at the school, keeping a mom’s loving watch over the students, staff and any visitors that stop in as well. After a 9 to 10 hour day, she sometimes finds vegetables to resell in the market for profit. Then she goes home to make dinner and oversee homework assignments. After cleaning up and getting the kids to bed, she has prayers at her house with folks from the neighborhood cell group. That’s every night, from 9-11 pm. When Bob asked, “Every night?!?”, she just raised her eyebrows in a subtle nod and smiled that big gorgeous smile. Peris also leads the cell group on Sunday nights, teaching 15-20 of her neighbors from the Inductive Bible Training material, as she was among the first class of graduates on March 2. When Bob mentioned a couple of prayer requests, she excitedly grabbed a pen and paper and wrote them down. Prayer is serious business. But she does all she does with that big gorgeous smile.

Maximilla, the young lady next door, joined us and joyfully bought sodas. When she moved here last year, she was so shy, she wouldn’t speak; Peris shared Christ with her, and she joined the church. She began serving, because “I realized that I could not really know Christ just sitting in the seat; it was in serving in the house of the Lord I have come to really know Him.” Maximilla also graduated IBS; she translated for Don, and now helps teach it. She glowed telling us how Peris was her spiritual mentor, and how she took her home to meet her family last week. Centrine, another cook, arrived and nursed her baby, who had just gone to the doctor for a nasty fungal infection on his neck. We all sat and talked for two hours, while neighborhood children toddled in and out freely, and Peris and Haron’s other children came home from school. Such a beautiful family, so much love and peace in this simple home.
The morning Jane died, Apollo announced her death in church, and then said, “You know, even though Jane did not attend here, this school is part of us; we cannot separate the school from the church. These school children are our family.” After church, I asked Haron and Peris what their intention was with Meshak. Did they want to help him temporarily, or long term? She just said, “We will raise him as our own. We love him.” Then she added, “If no one will take in the two girls, we will take them too.”
I told her we would try to find sponsors for the two girls in Primary, to cover their school fees, uniforms and supplies. (We already have one sponsor, if anyone else is game, please let us know!)
Peter told us that other Graceway families were so moved by Peris and Haron’s charity, that there would be no problem helping to support them in this, and even finding other parents to do the same.
Today I learned that after Peris got the girls ready for school and went to work, they never showed up at school. They were eventually located at the burial plot of their deceased mom; they had walked the nearly 10 miles to Sirende, only to find a few drunks hanging around the area near the grave.
Peter explained that it was a good thing we didn’t come earlier to the burial, because some of the men were saying, “when the muzungus come, we will get money from them.” It could have gotten violent. He said he wanted to go there one night and show an evangelistic movie and preach. “Would that would be safe, going there after dark?” He laughed and said, “No, we might get beat up – but hey, these are the ones the gospel is for, right?”
This is just one small chapter of one story, of lives intertwined in the horror and the beauty that is Africa. How our lives became intertwined, is still a mystery to us. The end of the story, only the Author knows.
Tags: children in Africa, Children in Poverty, Community Transformation, Missions in Africa, The Church and Extreme Poverty, Women in Africa





Kenyan partners to spread the Gospel to Tuwani and many surrounding villages, showing the “Hope” film in Swahili. This drew large crowds and led to hundreds of people receiving Jesus, a highlight for all of us!
nal strategic grain reserves are completely depleted and now the government has resorted to the importation of maize, the main staple food for the country. There are also fears that the newest consignment is a genetically modified maize (GMO), food that Kenyans had never had before. ..This therefore means that we need proper planning for the school. Scarcity of rainfall and an uncontrolled market that gives unscrupulous dealers leeway to hoard maize are factors to bring fear in the country. Generally we lack policies to ensure food security in [Kenya}”
tal, the school continues to develop in every area. The 82 children in the Preschool and 88 in the new Primary section (Grades 1-3) are thriving, enjoying two nutritious meals per day, complete with fruit and vegetables 2-3 times per week. For many of the kids, these meals are their only source of food. Thanks to the 6th grade class of Lee Elementary, the baby class received uniforms and backpacks quickly, and the rest of the preschoolers received their uniforms before we left. However, many still need backpacks, socks and shoes, and because government subsidized mosquito nets are no longer available, the cost has been prohibitive up to this point. We still hope to be able to buy them, even if only for the baby class.
PARENTS & WIDOWS: Great inroads were made relationally and organizationally this year highlighted by 1) the Parent’s Chai, hosted by Caleb and Eva to introduce themselves to the community and further honor the parent’s role in the school, and 2) the formation and training of a Parent Representative Board, which have a very active and important function in Kenya. LuAnn also ministered to the widow’s group, which is now growing under the teaching of Apollo and Rose.
the back area of the school compound as a demonstration plot for a garden. This will serve as a demonstration plot for Tuwani to see what a variety of healthy food can come out of a small space, and also as a supply of veggies for school lunches! We hope to lease a larger plot to grow more food.
h the slum, surrounded by kids, we draw attention, but no longer as strangers; we are now “Mama Leah” and “Baba Bob”, and all the team are often called by name, not just “muzungus.” Many opportunities for evangelism rose out of this. Bob became very bold and effective speaking to the young men in particular, challenging them to rise up to love, protect, and serve the women and children of Tuwani as they were meant to do. One well-known thief and ganja dealer repented, brought his large stash to the church the next day, and has been attending Graceway since. Bob even spoke spontaneously in a slum pool hall, which resulted in every one of them praying out loud to receive Christ and become a real man with purpose! At least one is now being discipled by Pastor Apollo. We are very excited that the Graceway leaders are fervently continuing and expanding this outreach, as well as others.