Hi Nyayo Family!

April was another great month filled with more blessings and growth! The kid’s received some awesome gifts on Easter and three kids within the community received the first wheelchairs as apart of our new Outreach program! We were able to use donations towards our guest house project and even raised enough money to be able to purchase two more heifers! On top of this, we made some new updates to our webpage! Continue reading for all the details as well as the financial report so that you can see how much we’ve raised and expended.

April 2023 Giving Report

Donors gave $3,327 towards Basic Needs this month and we once more met this priority! This is below the $4,950 we send but if you recall we have been getting more than that amount for the past several months, so we used some of those savings to finish of the $4950 for this month. We have not seen a dip in donations, we are simply encouraging some of our regular givers to give to other projects that may interest them since we have been overachieving in our Basic Needs campaign. An example of this is that two of our donors gave to the heifer campaign this month which is the reason we were able to send money for a second cow this month. In addition to Basic Needs, the below graph shows all of the many other projects that were given to this month. Please click Monthly Financial Report for a full detailed breakdown.

Below is a breakout of how the money raised was expended this month. As you can see, not all funds are expended in the same month that they are raised. Only amounts shown in green are sent over to be expended. Amounts shown in yellow are those amounts that are being saved until the next goal is reached or, in the case of the washing machine project, until we finish costing out that project. Grey indicates amounts already sent within this calendar year and blue represents money sent in previous years.

A few things to note:

We have finished funding phase 1 of the Guest House Sustainability project! The $2,800 was used to repay a loan Gordon took out to upgrade the water and plumbing for the showers in the home this past October in preparation for our mission trip. We will be continuing to raise and send money to continue to improve the reliability of the water in the house as well as some other things. We are excited to be making progress on this project because we have near term plans to start advertising this property on Airbnb after these upgrades are complete.
We completed raising money for 2 more heifers this month. When Gordon purchases these we will have purchase 17 so far! We will be up to 19 total with the bull and newborn calf. It’s really neat to see this herd grow!
We collected another $250 to purchase another wheelchair for the local outreach program.
We also completed our goal for raising $250 this month to apply to April - June birthdays this quarter. We will be saving this money and send it next month to give Gordon time to prepare for June.

A special thanks to our regulars and one time givers for this month’s allocation:

Shellie Mitchell, Ryan and Sydney McKenna, Curran Hyde, Taylor Handley, Pat and Alex Burgess, Stacey and Earl Sutton, Cayce McAlister, Sebastian and Eun Joo Tarchala, Jordan Anderson, Lauren Russo, Christan Yarbrough, Lydia Foutch, Anna Barrera, Armin Jahandarfard, Josh Cornett, Taylor Sutton, Angi Keel, Arman and Leslie Jahandafard, Joyce McConnell, Mahalie and Brandon Todd, Amanda and Jacob Patterson, Ashley Kennemer, Alex Moore, Sierra and Sam Smith, Cindy Dorsainvil, and Rhawny Leach.

Thank you all, we truly would not be close to meeting the needs and are already seeing the fruit from the sustainable projects. We couldn’t do this without your help!

What’s New?

Updated “Our Team” Webpage

This past month we made some new updates on Our Team webpage! We wanted to introduce you to each of the caregivers that work hard each day to care for the kids of Ibonde and Jinja! These caregivers make everything possible and we are so grateful for them! As of now, we have only added the caregivers from Ibonde but we plan to update the webpage with caregivers from Jinja as well in the near future! Check out the “Our Team” page on our website to learn a little more about who our caregivers are! Below are a few examples from the webpage!

New Donation Campaigns

As we continue to assess the needs of Ibonde, Jinja and the communities surrounding them, we have added new donation campaigns on our webpage for our donors to choose from! The new campaigns include the Washing Machine project, Guest House project and Outreach which is currently raising funds for wheel chairs! You can see all of the active campaigns on the “Donation” tab of our webpage!

KODA Cares Application

For those that are new to our newsletters, KODA Technologies is a company that one our donors, Arman Jahandarfard, works for who has a program called KODA Cares. This is a program which distributes funds to employee’s choice of nonprofits/charities. Arman has applied twice in the past year and Nyayo has received a total of $9,600 from his efforts and KODA’s generosity. These funds have specifically gone to the cattle sustainability project, being responsible for the purchase of 7 heifers! This past month Arman sent in a third application to KODA Cares in hopes of receiving donations to continue to fund the cattle project! We will be sure to keep you all updated on the nomination results when we receive them! If anyone works for or knows of company’s with similar charitable programs, we would be happy to share the presentation and support you in putting together any other necessary material.

Easter Celebration!

This Easter celebration was an exciting one! It was a bit different than previous years, as usually the kids get treats such as cake and soda but this year Gordon asked the kids what they wanted and they asked for soccer gear! The kids absolutely love playing soccer and always find a way to play with little to no equipment, so this gear was a perfect gift for them and is already getting put to great use! Some of the equipment included cleats, soccer balls, pumps, bags and jerseys! Thank you to all our donors who gave specifically to Celebrations for bringing the kids so much joy with these gifts! Below are some pictures of the Easter soccer matches!

Community Outreach Wheelchairs

With our new Outreach donation campaign, we are starting to serve the children and caregivers in the local villages that surround Ibonde and Jinja Children’s Homes. There are many disabled in these communities so we have decided to start this effort by focusing funds on purchasing wheelchairs until every child and caregiver in these villages are up off the dirt. We were able to provide 3 wheelchairs so far and raised enough for another wheelchair this past month! Thank you all for the donations, as these wheelchairs make a big difference with the quality of life and daily activities of the kids and caregivers! Below are some photos of the kids with their new wheelchairs!

Things We Are Praying About

We continue to ask for your prayers for God’s continued guidance as we follow along wherever the Spirit leads. Prayer is clearly being answered in ways we aren’t even asking for help in. If you’d like to pray along with us, these are things Michael, Gordon, and Hunter are currently praying for:

Blessings for the children and caregivers of Ibonde and Jinja Children’s Home
Guidance for Michael, Gordon, and Hunter as they continue to lead Nyayo
Guidance for others who are helping
Guidance on upcoming projects for the children’s homes

Bible Study

Weekly Zoom Studies

Please reach out if you’re interested in joining our bible studies via zoom every Sunday at 7pm CT! We welcome anyone who wants to learn more about Jesus, even if you just wish to keep your camera off and only listen in on our discussions! We like to keep it light and informal as we have casual conversations about the various chapters we read throughout the Bible! We are currently reading 1 Samuel.

Peace and blessings,

Michael, Gordon, and Hunter

April 2023 Newsletter