Meet Benard and His Family

On Saturday (October 14), we traveled more than 100 km (about 65 miles) to the home of Benard Nyongesa, one of the students at RITT. Since he and his family have almost nothing to live on, we are personally helping to support him and his family while he is at RITT. He is in the third year of a four year course, after which he will be ordained as a pastor. He is 27 years old with a great deal of energy and feels a calling to provide spiritual leadership to his people. His wife and two small children remain at home while he is at RITT, on a tiny parcel of land provided by Benard’s father, living in a small mud house that Benard built with his own hands earlier this year. Benard is only able to get back to his home during semester breaks, and occasionally for special events.

Although we knew that Benard’s situation was difficult, we did not fully realize its seriousness. Since he cannot provide for his family while he is a student at RITT, his family seldom gets enough nutritious food to eat. They often go to sleep hungry. His parents are also poor and try to help out as much as possible, but they have several other children at home that they cannot afford to send to secondary school, since they cannot pay the tuition. Although Benard is working very hard to come up with tuition money, he, and the Reformed church of which he is a member cannot collect enough money for tuition and room and board—which is very little compared to North American standards—about US$ 400 per year. Since RITT itself is very poor and cannot afford to allow outstanding tuition debts, Benard may be forced to leave RITT.

We were amazed to find out that Benard cannot even afford to pay for cheap public transportation (via matatu) back and forth to his home. He rides his bicycle! Not a light weight multi-gear bike, but a heavy, old one speed African style bike. He says that it takes him about eight or nine hours to travel the 100+kilometers over dangerous and rough roads. He is young and strong, but the trip does take a toll on him ranging from sore knees to severe chest fatigue pains. Needless to say, we will pay his transportation expenses from now on until he graduates from RITT.

Benard’s home area is in a rural part of Kenya, not too far from Uganda. Most of the people have small farms where they grow subsistence crops such as maize, cassava, sweet potatoes and other vegetables. The last 15kms of the dirt road going into their area is brutal, especially during the rainy season. (Thank goodness the rains are ending.) In many places, the road is so rough and uneven that we wondered at times if our vehicle was going to tip on its side, into one of the giant holes where heavily loaded lorries had been recently dug out!

As we traveled along the road, we passed a lot of people walking or on bicycles. Many seemed surprised to see us or looked dumbfounded and could hardly respond to us when we greeted them in the Kiswahili language. We asked Benard how often wazungu (white people) come into this area of Kenya. His reply was astounding. The last white person that he knew of that came into his area (about 60 sq. miles) was a Catholic priest about 10 years ago. Most, if not all, of the children had never seen a real live white person! Of course, they, and many of the older people had seen pictures of white people, but had never seen real live ones. We didn’t exactly feel like aliens, but we did get some strange looks.

When we arrived at Benard’s home, we were greeted warmly by his wife and other family members. His children (as well as two nieces), however, refused, at first, to come out of the cooking hut, looking at us from the dark recesses of the hut. After visiting with Benard for a couple of hours, his wife served us an appetizer of plain bread slices and hot chocolate. Later she served us the typical East African lunch, comprised of rice, potatoes cut cube size, and a few beef pieces mixed into an excellently spiced tomato soup. It was delicious! Most likely, they sacrificed financially to provide this meal for us. Afterwards, we looked over his small plot of land, walked to the nearby home of his father and mother, where we visited with them for a while. They, too, are very poor, since they are struggling with educating their five other children, all of which are younger than Benard. We also found out the his wife digs/hoes by hand other peoples farms in order to make money for the family.

At the end of the day, we returned home on the same way we came. (It took more than an hour just to traverse the 15kms of dirt road to the tarmac, which in itself isn’t exactly a super highway.) Although we were exhausted when we returned home, we felt privileged to visit this corner of Kenya to see how so many people have to live from day to day. It gives us energy to continue our work here at RITT. We are, and will continue to see Benard through his education at RITT. By Kenya standards, he is seriously in debt for tuition (about $600 US). We are/will personally provide about $200 toward his tuition and transportation, and are wondering if there might be others who would be willing to help out with some support. If so, send us an email, and we will let you know how you it can be handled.

Blessings to all of you.