Greetings in the Precious Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! I trust that the Lord has kept you well and pray that you will experience God’s grace in 2021.
As we start this year, we are grateful to God for making it possible for us to resume our projects. As a ministry of the Navigators Kenya we are committed to working together with ministry teams in the communities where God has placed us, to economically empower the rural and urban (poor) majority for holistic transformation.
Last month we visited communities in Eldoret and Moiben, in Uasin Gishu county. One of the groups we met was the Magrina Table banking group which was established in 2018 through the Structural Agricultural Practices (SAPs) project supported by our Scandinavian partner. The chairperson of the group shared that the initiative is driven by two contributions: a weekly saving of Ksh.220 per person and merry-go-round where they make a monthly contribution of Ksh.1000 per person. She shared that the monthly contribution is invested for personal development i.e. buying water tanks, sheep, goats or building materials.
Table banking chairperson (Magrina) addressing the team
The weekly contribution is kept and shared annually. Under the same project, in 2018 they planted black night shade – a plant used as a vegetable (managu) in Kenya. They sold the produce to buy utensils that they hire out as a group to generate income. As a result, the group has managed to build a better house for one of their members, donated a mattress and blanket to a blind man in their neighborhood and have recently started a tree nursery as one of the initiatives of the SAPs project in the region.
We continue to pray that God will use this work to transform many other communities.