How It Began

Photos

In November of 2003, I visited two teachers I had been sponsoring for a year through a charity in Golden, Colorado. These teachers were teaching in an impoverished slum in Nairobi, Kenya called Fuata Nyayo. During our time together, they confided that they were not getting the money I had been sending but that the school director was misappropriating the money. The principal, John Andirah, substantiated their claim. John and I then agreed that we should have our own school. There was never any doubt in our minds that this project was God's Will. We rented 4 rooms in the slum for $13/month for each room. The rooms had dirt floors and were made of used, twisted metal sheets, but they were the beginning of our school. When asked, the teachers named it Bright Star Academy, but I've changed "Academy" to "School" so that no one is misled.

Rooms were formed with tree branches and iron sheets	Classrooms had iron sheet walls and dirt floors.	We started with almost nothing, but God had great plans.	This may be the only meal some children got that day.
Children were fed ugali, which is boiled corn meal, a staple food of Kenyans.	A desk built for two had to hold 4-5 students.	The older students got the desks.	The littlest ones had to sit on the dirt floors. So I bought sisal mats for them to sit on.	These were our first teachers.
	The iron sheets provided some privacy for the classrooms.	Pastor John is the school director.	This playground is the site where the new school has since been built.

Within a few days, the rooms were crowded with children who wanted to learn. When I was told most schools do not provide lunch for the children and that the majority of the children would go all day without eating because of the profound poverty in the slum, the decision to provide lunch for the children was an easy one to make. The teachers and John prepared ugali (corn meal boiled in water) each school day. Ugali, the favorite food of most Kenyans, is not nutritious but it's filling.

Within a couple of months, we had 300 students and consequently had to rent a church during the week for additional classroom space. The church, which measured approximately 50'x40', held about 120 students in 4 classes.

The children were getting educated and fed.

In February of 2004, I had a heart attack, a gentle reminder from God that I was not immortal and that I needed to put to good use the money He had blessed me with, the money I had stashed away in a savings account. That summer, the money was paid to the Kenyan government to purchase land in the slum, a contractor was hired, building materials were purchased, and construction of a permanent Bright Star School began with eight stone classrooms, a bathroom, a girls' dormitory with a bathroom, an office, and living quarters with a bathroom for John, the school director, and his family.

Once these rooms were completed and were being used, additional money was donated by family and friends to complete a training center, two more classrooms, and a kitchen. Construction of these rooms was completed by April of 2005.

For the protection of our 42 orphans, we built a security wall (the first wall was washed away with the spring floods and a second was built, was partially washed away, and was rebuilt), added 4 bathrooms, and converted one classroom into a boys' dormitory, adding a bathroom to that room.

Although with reservation, I agreed to continue the educational process into secondary school, adding a ninth grade class in 2006, a tenth grade class in 2007, and an 11th grade class in 2008. Two new classrooms were built with a huge donation from Bill Kring. See photo below.

With God's blessings, construction of a science laboratory, three classrooms, and a clinic was completed in June of '08. Having taken the playground in the school compound for our new classrooms, we purchased land outside the security walls for the children's playground.

We also built a new boys' dormitory (red roof) in '07 and expanded the girls' dormitory, adding a bathroom with 2 showers, 2 toilets, and 2 sinks in '08.