Dorm Building

The team of Doctors, Builders, and Daylight Staff are preparing to leave next week to finish building the Dormitory on the new Daylight property!

I leave on my trip in five days. I feel like the final countdown has begun. I had a coffee meeting with my friend Nathan (US Director of Daylight) this morning to work on the final details. Right now, there are only a few things left to pick up: granola bars, a pump for the soccer balls I bought (that will need to be flat to fit in my suitcase), and a few other miscellaneous items. Then off to Daylight!

Brianna Menning
Daylight US Board Member

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A Girl Lost and a Heart Broken

Daylight is proud of the 1 minute update and we try and keep our emails concise. But this story is too important to shorten to 1 minute. Please take the extra time to read this heartbreaking story of Lauren and Grace.

Many of you remember the girl named Kakuko who I met April 2011 on my five-week journey to rural Kenya. She had an infected ear and we brought her to Daylight to get treatment and education. Everything was going well. Her ear healed. She was adapting to life in the “city.” And loving school.

Then, in December of last year, the man who is considered to be her guardian came to Kapenguria and took her away. Grace’s ear was fully healed and he wanted to sell her into marriage for cows. Although Grace is only about 13 years old, she is of age to marry in traditional Pokot culture.

Michael and his family tried to persuade Grace’s guardian to let her stay with them and go to school, but the man refused.

When I heard this news, it rocked me to my very core. I don’t think I stopped crying for the next two days straight.

How could this happen? How could this man be so selfish when this beautiful girl has been given such an amazing opportunity?

I just wanted to protect her from the imminent arranged (aka forced) marriage and free her from the people around her who were oppressing her.

When that passed, I felt so hopeless, I just wanted forget about Daylight’s mission, and protect myself from the pain of knowing what could have been. But wasn’t.

Never has something challenged my faith and my heart more than this. I went through months of counseling. I was scared to call Michael and to find out if he knew how she was. I was scared to hear more bad news. I was angry at God for putting Grace through all of it.

And then I slowly realized that I didn’t trust God. Sure, I trust Him when things are going well. But when life gets hard, when futures seem uncertain, and when I can not see (or control) what is happening, I turn into a big ball of anxiety, fear, and depression.

Recently, I was able to call Michael and ask if he had seen Grace. He told me that every time he goes to Alale, she finds out he is coming and rushes to meet him. She is going to the makeshift church in the village and her ear is still healed. She is not married.

And then very, very slowly, I started to take baby steps towards trust.

Although my heart breaks for Grace and her seemingly unclear future, I know that we can help many other children.

And it has deepened my resolve for helping Daylight in its mission of bringing hope to unlikely places and to unlikely children. Please pray for Grace and for all of the other children who need a safe place to live and learn.

Lauren Vetsch
Daylight US Board Member

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Animal Sacrifices = Traditional Health Insurance

The Pokot villages were like another world. Something that only westerners from National Geographic get to explore. But here we were. In the middle of it.

The night we arrived, some herdboys brought us a dik-dik (small antelope) they had just shot with bow and arrow. They skinned it, gutted it and we cooked it over the fire.

While we were there, we slept in a hut made of mud, sticks and animal dung.

The last day we were there, a child was sick with what everyone assumed was malaria. The people gathered around thought they should sacrifice a goat to appease whatever had caused the sickness in the child. Michael called someone who worked at the clinic in the area who came with medicine and a lecture about bringing sick children to a clinic before taking time to perform animal sacrifices.

Education around medicine and access to simple antibiotics is critical to well-being in the villages. Daylight is seeking to educate villagers and provide vital medicine to hurting people.

Faith and David Kroeker Maus
Daylight Advisory Board Members currently stationed in England
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Wrestling with Tough Questions about God

Daylight board member, Andrew Ulasich, has an amazing heart, and is a wonderful storyteller. He is also a creative theologian. And in a recent sermon he wrestled with a question that has plagued him since he spent a year serving women caught in sex trafficking in Nepal:

Can I honestly share with girls in brothels that there is a good God who cares about them?

He explains, “I am leery of easy answers that explain away suffering without respecting the gravity of people’s pain. I even find rational theological arguments out of place when it comes to the lives of individuals suffering the greatest injustices in this world.”

At Daylight, children come orphaned and disabled by conflict, in need of food, clean water and health care. These realities, if faced honestly and with vulnerability, are overwhelming and can often bring one to question the goodness of God. But Andrew discovers throughout the Scriptures, and his faith journey that God suffers with and for God’s people. And we see this most clearly in Jesus’ love of the vulnerable and hurting people.

You can listen to the rest of Andrew’s story as he wrestles with the hard questions that arise when confronted by overwhelming poverty and suffering that is all too prevalent in this world, and discovers a God who suffers with humanity.

Hear Andrew’s story.

Also, a big thanks to board members Andrew, Lauren, and Matt for raising $1000 at a benefit concert and silent auction!

Nathan Roberts
US Director, Daylight Center

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