“Thank you,” Charles mumbled as he took the report. “I want to learn how to do better.”
That night at the dinner table, Charles announced the bad news to Esther and some of his biological children. “It is not a good result,” he told them. “I do not recall ever getting 10 percent in anything I’ve tried to do. It would be easy to give up. But we teach the children to not give up, to learn from their mistakes, and to keep going. That’s what we’re going to do. We will apply dedication and perseverance to this task until we master it. There’s a lot at stake here. When we get the certification, we will be able to get top money for our beans. Then we can hire more women who need jobs and help support the children as well. Now is not the time to give up.”
This was easier said than done. Charles and the MCF team had to locate the right pest control chemicals, educate the workers on how to clip their fingernails and tie up their hair, completely redo the pipes and joints of the irrigation system, and make vast improvements to their record-keeping system.
One month later Charles asked the EurepGAP auditors to come back for another inspection. Once again the inspectors spent the entire day with clipboards and pens, writing, measuring, and questioning. At the end of the day, the head auditor came to Charles. “Many smaller farms like yours apply for export status. It is a very difficult thing to get. You know how strict our policies are.”
Charles looked at him, trying to gauge what he meant. He could not read the man’s face.
“Here are the results once again,” the auditor said, handing Charles another wad of paperwork. “I’m very impressed and happy to tell you that you have a score of 98 percent this time. You will be allowed to export your beans to Europe.” Then he shook his head. “What you have done is quite remarkable. We would like to invite other farmers to see what you have implemented here. They could learn a lot from you.”
Charles felt a giant smile spread across his face. “Yes, yes, of course. We would be happy to host anyone who wants to learn. Thank you!”
That night, the whole Mully Children’s Family celebrated. They had persevered and overcome together.
As the year went on, the family had more to celebrate. Charles was honored with the Robert Pierce Award from World Vision International for outstanding work in humanitarian and Christian service to the poor. In deciding who would receive the award, the organization looked at the difficulty of the situation being addressed, the quality of the program, and the number of people being helped. By then there were nearly five hundred children in Mully Children’s Family at Ndalani and Eldoret, and Charles still sought more desperate children who needed help.
Chapter 13
Sinking into Violence
It was 2001. When the telephone rang, Charles answered it.
“Hello,” came a voice at the other end. “You might not remember me. My name is Duma, and I visited your family at Ndalani last year for the agricultural field day.”
“Yes, of course I remember you. How are you?” Charles responded.
“Very well, thank you. I was impressed with what I saw on the visit—we all were. I happen to have two hundred acres of land in the Yatta district, seven and a half miles directly southwest of your property at Ndalani. It’s on the main road and about six miles from the national park. I want to sell half of it. Would you be interested in buying it? I’m going to retain half the property, but I am getting ready to sell the other half.”
“Yes, we are interested, but we don’t have the money at present. Can you call me again in two weeks, and we can discuss this further?”
“I can do that,” Duma agreed.
When Charles hung up the phone, he prayed. “Father, You know our needs. You know I have been wanting to establish a separate place for those street girls who are pregnant or already have small children of their own. This property sounds ideal. Please show me what to do.”
That night he discussed the idea with Esther. Her eyes shone as she talked about the possibilities. “Just think of it, Charles. It is close to Ndalani but not too close. Many of the street girls will be tempted to go back to their old lives, so it’s good that it’s out in the country.” The two of them talked long into the night, dreaming of programs to help the girls become good mothers, learn trades such as hairdressing, carpentry, accounting, and dressmaking, and learn how to take advantage of microfinancing opportunities.
Within a week Charles received an email from a man in Canada who wished to remain anonymous. The man wanted to donate money to MCF, an amount large enough to cover 40 percent of the cost of the Yatta property. Charles emailed the man back to ask if the money could be used toward helping establish a facility for street girls and their babies. The answer he received was yes. Charles let out a whoop of joy. He was confident he was on the right track—God’s track—in wanting to buy the Yatta property. He called the owner back and told him he could make a down payment on the land. The deal was soon done, and work began on the property immediately.
Charles wanted the new home for the street girls built as soon as possible. Workers and finance flowed into the project. Church groups from all over the world sent money to help pay off the debt on the land and provide building materials for classrooms, dormitories, and a dining room. Every time Charles worked at the property to help set up the site, he prayed for the girls who would soon be moving there from Ndalani.
A year later, in 2002, Charles was granted the Angel of Hope Award from World Vision, in part for his work with the street girls at Yatta.
The following year, Duma, the previous owner of the Yatta property, visited Charles to see what he was doing with the land. He was so impressed with the way the MCF social workers and teachers were working with the pregnant street girls and those with small children that he gave the hundred acres of land he had been keeping for himself to Charles. This could not have come at a better time. Charles had big plans for the Yatta site, and now with two hundred acres he could do even more.
By now French bean production at Ndalani was in full swing, with an average of eighteen hundred pounds harvested each day. Most of the beans were exported to France. In 2003 an Australian businessman named Teagan Jones toured the Ndalani property. Over lunch he turned to Charles and asked him what his next step would be.
“A greenhouse,” Charles replied. “A big greenhouse covering two and three-quarter acres in which we can grow crops all year. French beans mature here in six weeks. With a greenhouse we could get eight crops a year and keep the women we employ working year-round. It would also help us to be self-sustaining, and that’s something we want very much.”
“All right, Charles, I’ll do it. You shall have your greenhouse,” Teagan said.
Charles wasn’t sure what to say.
Teagan smiled and went on. “Put the details on paper and send them to me, and I’ll see to it you get the biggest greenhouse you’ve ever seen. You can grow all the French beans or anything else you want to grow in it.”
“That’s a lot of money,” Charles said.
Teagan laughed. “You have a lot of kids to take care of. I think you could use a little help, don’t you?”
Charles laughed too. “Thank you,” he said. “This means a lot to our family.”
By the end of the year, another businessman, this time from Canada, offered to pay for greenhouses at Yatta. Again, Charles looked at this as an opportunity to provide jobs for more local women and earn extra income from the produce for his ever-growing Mully Children’s Family. And this time the greenhouses would cover twenty-five acres of land. The water that ran off the greenhouses when it rained would be captured and used for domestic duties and irrigation. As part of the installation of the new greenhouses, five dams were constructed to hold the projected 5.5 million gallons of runoff rainwater.
Soon the work on the new greenhouses at Yatta was complete, and lush rows of French beans and other vegetables filled them and the greenhouse at Ndalani. When the rainwater runoff had filled the reservoirs behind the dams at Yatta, a fish-farming operation was also begun, raising catfish and tilapia.
It seemed to Charles that with God’s help everything he put his hands to seemed to flourish. By 2004, when MCF held its fifteen-year anniversary, 440 children and young adults were living at Ndalani, 90 babies and younger children at Eldoret, and 50 teen mothers and their babies at Yatta. MCF also ran a home and hospice for children who were sick with HIV/AIDS and other serious illnesses.
Over a span of fifteen years, the lives of more than sixteen hundred children had been dramatically changed. In fact, the MCF school was still rated number one in the district. And from the school’s first graduating class, a number of the children had received university scholarships to train as doctors, lawyers, and diplomats.
One of the accomplishments Charles was proudest of was the way all his children got along. He constantly reminded them that they were brothers and sisters regardless of what tribe or region of Kenya they came from. But one day this family spirit was to be tested to the breaking point.
“Dad, you must come and look at this,” Isaac called from the open cafeteria outside Charles and Esther’s room.
Soon Charles, Esther, Grace, Mueni, and Isaac were all staring at the television. “Kenya appears to be sinking into a violent state where no one is safe,” a commentator said as scenes of bloody violence flashed across the screen. The images were almost too much for Charles to believe. It was January 1, 2008, a day when the country should have been celebrating the New Year along with the rest of the world. It was also four days after the most contentious election in Kenya’s history, and the country had erupted into tribal violence.
Since Kenya had gained its independence from Great Britain in 1963, long-standing problems had existed between the Kalenjin and the Kikuyu tribes. After independence, when white settlers left their fertile farmland in the White Highlands of central Kenya and the Rift Valley, the Kikuyu tribe, who had won the majority of the seats in Kenya’s new parliament, redistributed most of this land to members of their tribe. The problem was that before Europeans came and settled this land, it had belonged to the Kalenjin and the Maasai people. Now, following the 2007 election, political commentators were accusing President Mwai Kibaki of rigging the elections so that his party, the Party for National Unity, or PNU, would stay in power. President Kibaki and his cabinet were mostly Kikuyus. Members of the opposition party, the Orange Democratic Party, cried foul. When their cries were not listened to and President Kibaki was declared president once more, they began to riot on the streets of Nairobi. The unrest quickly spread north into the Rift Valley.
Charles and his family watched footage on television of Kikuyu homes in the Rift Valley with the words “Leave Your Place Today or You Will Be Killed” painted on the outside walls. Mobs of teenage Kalenjin boys had taken the law into their own hands and appeared ready to slaughter thousands of Kikuyu people in the Rift Valley.
Then came the most chilling news of all. A TV reporter announced that over fifty unarmed Kikuyu women and children, some as young as a month old, had been burned to death while taking refuge in a church in Kiambaa. Charles and Esther looked at each other. Kiambaa was a suburb of Eldoret, less than ten miles from the MCF home there.
“Thank God none of our children are there,” Esther said with tears in her eyes. “God was good to warn us.”
“Yes,” Charles agreed.
Two weeks before the election, Charles had visited Eldoret and had become aware of the mounting political tension enveloping the place. As he prayed about what to do, he felt he should temporarily move the children and staff from there to Ndalani, in case things got out of hand. Now he was glad he had done so. He had suspected there could be unrest over the election results, but what was unfolding in the country was unimaginable.
