Africa Trip (Sept 2022)
Saturday afternoon Oct 1st I returned home from 2 weeks in Africa. Below is my trip report.
It’s not particularly polished but does tell the story. I hope it resonates:
Friday 9/16: landed Nairobi 6AM Sept 16th
My friend Peter Fry the exec director of End Poverty picked me up and we met with Rob Beyer of Villgro Africa for breakfast.
Villgro supports emerging African medical ventures. At our meeting Rod was excited about a just released Voice of America piece that reported on one of the companies they work with.
Really cool stuff. Rob has been working in Kenya for almost 20 years and is from Toronto, more on that later.
After that, we visited Limuru Children's Center, an orphanage (about 30 kids) run by a German family. By this time I had consumed 2 cups of coffee on the plane before we landed, one at the airport cafe before being picked up and 2 more at my second breakfast, combined with 20 hrs of flying, I was pretty out of it, but a little girl decided I needed to hold her! From there we went to a Baptist conference center, had lunch and then a driver took me back to the Nairobi airport to catch a late afternoon flight to Rwanda.
I arrived in Rwanda at 8 PM and was picked up by Roger Shaw, Lakeside Fish Farm. From the airport we caught up with Jason Miller, he's the relationship manager for Mully Children's Family, Kenya (MCF), he was staying at Hope Haven School in Kigali, Rwanda. In the dark, with our cell phone flashlights we inspected the school's expansion project that will more than double the number of students, bringing their enrollment to 2000.
With Jason from there we drove an hour to get to the Fish Farm, at 11PM local time I went to bed. With the exception of a few hours of sleep on the plane I had been awake for 54 hours!
Saturday Sept 17th: All day at Lakeside Fish Farm.
This farm raises Tilapia, which is the most common and popular fish in East Africa (roughly Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Congo and Malawi). Roger sells fingerlings and mature fish. While we were there a farmer from Congo was loading 15,000 fingerlings into his SUV, 1000 fit in a 2 gallon plastic bag and weigh about a gram each.
Lakeside has a store in Kigali that in 24 hrs sells out their weekly load of fish. In conservative terms he has about a 1/4 of a million fish on his property, between the hatchery, nursery, floating lake baskets and the mating ponds. Jason and I were in awe of how complicated, fragile and intensive this business is. In our 2 day visit, I learned that I will never be a fish farmer.
Our main purpose here was to learn how the first PurposeBOX was being used. The objective with this project was to reduce the farm's single largest expense by bringing in a system that would process and store fish food. The system has been a qualified success and in time will become more effective. Roger has set up a fish lab where he is measuring the fish growth of his home made food to his commercially supplied food. Currently the commercial blend is better, but the home brew is improving.
Lakeside also operates a private school, Pioneer Learning Center with about 100 students and has expansion plans in the works. After a day and half with Lakeside we headed off to Malawi!
Sunday Sept 18th, fly back to Nairobi and on Monday the 19th fly to Lilongwe, Malawi - (with Jason Miller of MCF)
My travel partner Jason and I were picked up by Pastor/Doctor/Ex-Con/Contractor Charles Msukwa. Charles works with Paddy Braddy, my partner in PurposeBOX who about 10 years ago googled "which country is the poorest in Africa" and ever since has been doing work in Malawi. Poor is a moving target in Africa and it depends on how you measure it. Malawi has been improving and is no longer in the lead!
Paddy and Charles have worked on 2 pre PurposeBOX installations and to see these in place was the main purpose of our visit. The first was Chamadenga, a remote village about an hour and a half outside of Lilongwe. There is no electricity in that area and people live on subsistence farming. Paddy's nonprofit H2O Malawi has a school and a solar powered grinding machine to turn the corn they grow into maze.
The solar system and batteries were working great but the grinding machine was not. The belts and bearings were shot and it was clear no one locally knew how to repair the machine. This was good to see! And it was clear that some sort of in-country support will be needed to make sure the PurposeBOX equipment is doing its job.
Tuesday Sept. 20th 3+ hrs drive (each way) to Nkhotakota
Early on Paddy discovered Santa Cruz in Africa. On the western shores of Lake Malawi (the 5th largest natural lake in the world) there is a site with a perfect surf break, Nkhotakota!
And H2O bought a nice chunk of beach front property. This is a perfect example of using a natural gift you have (Paddy is a lifelong surfer) for Kingdom service! As things have developed Paddy has become a local Chief and the week after our visit he flew in and on this property hosted a lunch for 75 village chiefs from the surrounding area. H2O hosts a surf camps for the local kids each year.
About 100 yards from the beach H2O also has a school. At that location there is a solar/battery power station that provides lights and electric energy to the small village. Paddy’s group has begun to develop their property into a retreat & gathering place, we look forward to visiting again in the future!
Wednesday Sept. 21st Lilongwe Prison
Many years ago our host Charles served time in prison for embezzlement. This time changed his life as he found Christ there. Upon his release be began to rebuild and today is a very busy man, he leads a nationwide group of former inmates turned pastors who serve a captive group of parishioners in the prisons across Malawi (total of approximately 35,000 inmates!). On this day we visited Maula Prison in Lilongwe, population 3400. We toured the clinic and kitchen where H2O will be installing solar powered lighting but did not go inside the prison area.
From there we headed to the airport for an afternoon flight back to Kenya.
Thursday Sept. 22nd, Mully Childrens Family
(MCF), Yatta, Kenya
This was my 3rd visit to MCF over the last 6 years and if you have not watched the Mully Movie I’d suggest you do: https://mcfus.org/mullymovie/ Charles Mully lives an almost limitless existence with his God. The numbers are staggering: planted over 6,000,000 trees, rescued more than 13,000 kids, has 5 other ‘homes’ in Kenya, they exports vegetables to Europe, has 100’s of acres under cultivation, 30 acres of green house, a variety of livestock, 5 lakes and a river that crosses his 800 acres of property, . MCF has never turned away or expelled a child. Daddy (as they call Charles) has never let a child be adopted, he sees his kids leading the future of Kenya.
It’s no wonder I love visiting this place. God’s hand has been over this work. Two years ago MCF began planning and is now building what will be a 200 bed regional Hospital. Like most things in Africa the work is not easy and takes time, but Charles has a vision and will see it though.
Two people from Crossroads Canada were also visiting MCF the first day we were there. Crossroads is a Canadian Christian TV station based in Toronto. We got to know them and they us and in the process they introduced me to a work in Uganda that could fit well as a local PurposeBOX partner, my hope is to visit them next year. In turn I introduced them to Villgro mentioned above.
After dinner the MCF choir sang for us. Every time I experience this I am knocked over by the beautiful voices (maybe 60 of them) with no instruments or leader! As part of their repertoire they sang the US and Canadian national anthems.
Friday Sept. 23rd, MCF
The morning was our time to discuss how and if PurposeBOX could develop a relationship with MCF whereby they would be the base of our Kenya work. The discussion was positive and Charles asked for a written proposal which will be my next task after this report!
As I have done in the past, in the afternoon we talked to high school students and toured a bit more of the facilities. My friend Angela as always kept me out of trouble.
Saturday Sept. 24th, Head back to Nairobi, Karen Country Club (our accommodations)
The Karen Country Club was to serve as our base for the next 5 days. The area simply known as “Karen” in Nairobi is the former home of the Danish author Karen Blixen, well-known for the book Out of Africa (1937), her 6000 acre estate was eventually developed and absorbed into the city of Nairobi.
Jason lined us up with The Bucket Ministry for a tour of the work they are doing. The Kibera slum has a population of 600,000 but is only about a square mile. That’s about 900 people per acre. The land is owned by the government and most people live packed into in 12’x12’ mud walled / tin roofed huts all connected by narrow twisting walkways that also facilitated drainage and other things. It’s the largest slum in Africa and the 5th largest in the world. My traveling partner (Jason) has known and volunteered with The Bucket Ministry https://thebucketministry.org/ for many years. This group systematically works through communities where the drinking water is substandard providing them simple water filter system. In Kibera they have distributed about 80,000 ‘buckets’ over the last 6 months!
This woman, Yesenia, lives in Kibera with her 14 year old daughter and her diseased sister’s 4 year old daughter. She is a widow of 8 years, moved to the slum from a rural village in northern Kenya and makes a living sewing hand bags. For you backpacker that is a Sawyer water purifier.
Sunday – Thursday Sept. 25th to 29th Time with End Poverty and KuaVentures
At this point we joined the End Poverty annual meeting and conference with their board, staff and business partners. About 3 years ago End Poverty began to move away from micro finance into more of a financing partner, relocated their Executive Director Peter Fry (and his family) to Nairobi and formed KuaVentures We visited the businesses, and spent time with the owners.
Here are a few highlights:
JELIO Collections, the owner Grace has 3 retail locations and store shelf space in one of the largest retailers in Nairobi, they make and sell leather bags. We visited her store and I spent some time learning about how she survived the COVID shut down fascinating. Kua has helped JEILO with capital, business advice and introduction.
Pure Planet Recyclers, This company collects plastics bottles in Nairobi, that they sort, shred and pelletize for reuse by plastic manufactures. They employ as many as 40 causal workers each day to sort the plastic.
ToolKit iSkills, this nonprofit is focused on skills training in agriculture and construction. We visited their demonstration organic farm where interns participate in a 4 months program to learn organic farming. Crop management, natural pest control and proper irrigation are all part of the education that these students will bring back to their families and neighbors. In addition to the farm ToolKit is also training welders with a unique Virtual Reality MIG welding program. The systems has dramatically increased the number of certified welders entering the field in Kenya which in the past has depended on foreign labor to fill these jobs.
Maschine Tecnique Solution is an East African supplier of industrial systems and support. More than just a manufactures rep, they offer new and updated support solutions for agriculture, food, mining, construction, energy, automobile, real estate and manufacturing industries. As part of our visit I was able to meet with one of their customers, a construction and transport equipment dealer, to discuss an enhanced lubrication system.
SOKO KIJIJI Groceries. This online grocery delivery service resides in a large open air market, which serves as their supplier. Customers complete an online order form, they package up the order and then use their fleet of motorbike delivery guys to get them to the customer.
White Rhino. This is a video production company and Kua Ventures is providing the capital they need to produce a series for National Geographic Kids. It’s a big step for the company that they expect to lead them in to similar opportunities.
Thursday PM, Sept. 29th to 30th, Aroha Cancer Center & The Pathology Network, in Maru, Kenya
Two of the companies Kua partners with are located in northern Kenya. The Pathology Network and it's sister company Aroha Cancer Center. In East Africa pathology results can take as much as 3 months to process, The Pathology Network has developed systems and a network to reduce that time. In optimal conditions their service can provide lab results in a week. Aroha Cancer Center provides Chemo therapy in an area hard hit by high breast & cervical rates. They are looking to expand their treatment options in the near future. Both of these companies showcase the emerging innovative Kenyan entrepreneurs are providing.
On our return to Nairobi I had a quick dinner with the group and then headed to the airport for my quick 20 hr flight back to the US!
Take A Ways for PurposeBOX:
1) This venture will only be as good as local support. The receiving rural villages do not have residents with the mechanical ability or experience to maintain the equipment. It seems likely each of the East African destinations will have a local support team or individual.
2) Rather than have PurposeBOX dedicated to 20 and 40ft ISO containers, I see the possibility of utilizing smaller steel boxes (see the 5x8 unit - photo below) that can be assembled in country. Additionally as available any electrical, processing or accessory components will be sourced in the destination country to save on shipping costs and promote local relationships. If four PurposeBOX systems can be shipped in one container our costs will be reduced significantly and more people will be served.
3) Men! Rural Africa is plagued with missing fathers. There is an unfortunate cycle where men earn a day’s wage and on the way home spend it on alcohol, food and other things, eventually arriving home late at night with no money and in no condition to be a father. This was confirmed in dozens of conversations I had with people in all three countries we visited. The cycle has existed for generations and efforts to help have largely focused on the women and children impacted. My desire to focus on ways to bring these men into a balanced family existence. Going forward this will be a core value of PurposeBOX.
Summary
This trip was exhausting, amazing and invaluable. I can’t imagine doing it without Jason Miller, he’s the best. We spent hours reviewing what we saw and later reminding each other of stuff we forgot. His families sacrifice was significant as he has been away a lot this year. Also Peter Fry of End Poverty was a gem, with visas, accommodations, transportation and introductions. He better not leave Kenya anytime soon. And finally the hospitality of people like Roger Shaw in Rwanda, Charles Msukwa in Malawi and the MCF staff in Kenya made those visits that much better for us.
That’s about it, just praying for God’s continued leading.
