The Imai Orphan Care Foundation began with Kim (my wife) and myself back in 2010 with the opening of our orphanage- The Imani Home of Love. It all began with a trip Kim and I took to Kenya 9 years ago. Before going to Kenya, God was speaking to us about working with and helping orphaned and vulnerable children in the world. Kim would have dreams at night of children pulling at her and she felt a real sense of urgency. The dreams did not stop until we traveled to Kenya to see what God had in store for our family. When we were on that initial trip, we visited the Mombasa area and many of the orphanages. Once witnessing what these children were going through, we were determined to help these defenseless children. It was from this experience and our passion to care for these children that Imani Orphan Care’s story began.
Today, Imani Orphan Care supports 158 children through their children’s home Imani Home of Love located in Narok, Kenya and Imani Secondary School Program, Imani Polytechnic/University Program and through their Imani Chapel and Outreach Center in Olenkuluo, Kenya. The goal of Imani is to help offer these disadvantaged children the opportunity to gain tools, skills and knowledge, so that they can create a better future for themselves.
GLM Mortgage Group has continued to provide financial support for Imani by donating a portion of each completed mortgage. It’s a small but significant way that we can continue to support Imani’s sustainable approach that transforms lives.The GLM team has also taken an interest in participating in the mission’s trips to Imani each year. Imani runs two missions’ trips annually—one in the fall and one in the spring/summer. This year, our entire family joined us for an unforgettable missions’ trip, and I wanted to share it with you in hopes that you will consider partnering with Imani in the future! Enjoy the recap and I look forward to your comments!
On June 27th, my family and I went on a summers mission trip to Imani—located in Narok which is about 2.5 hours outside of Nairobi. We went with a group of 20 people; however, this was a special trip as we had my family, Kim’s (my wife) sister’s family, Kim’s parents and three other families along for the trip! It was a really memorable and neat experience to be a part of.
We had many projects that we wanted to accomplish while there. One of those was not redoing the playing field but like many of our mission trips became something that needed to get done. The playing field is where our Imani children play football (soccer to us North Americans), do all their outdoor activities, etc. It’s quite a large field. The field was not even, had lots of large divots and rocks throughout and on the last mission’s trip one of the team members set a goal for the field to be fixed and finance it personally as it was an accident waiting to happen! When we went back, we set out to make his goal happen and repair the field so our Imani kids could enjoy it without the fear of spraining an ankle.
The first step was to fill all the divots. There were hundreds of them! We ordered 3 huge trucks full of topsoil and leveled the field out. It’s now completely levelled and ready for the kids to play on it without fear of injury.
The second project we set out to complete was the planting of a shamba (garden). We wanted to make this garden special and have meaning to our kids. To do this, we partnered with an organization called Farming God’s Way which emphasizes using and respecting the land and resources around you to provide sustainable resources for communities. With this in mind, we cleared out the rocks, tilled the soil, planted sees and laid fresh mulch, created a rock wall and had each of our Imani Children plant a fruit tree!
Each child, (59 to be exact) planted a fruit tree which they have the responsibility to tend to and care for. This garden will provide the home with a food source and the fruit trees planted by each child symbolizes the ability of each of our Imani kids to bear fruit through their talents.
It was a phenomenal and productive missions’ trip and we are eager to go back in the fall. In the meantime, I’d like to encourage each of you to visit Imani’s website to learn more OR to come out and get involved in toone of the upcoming events:
- Hockey Marathon of Hope 2019-September 7 join 64 hockey players + volunteers as they all help to fundraise for Imani. We are currently seeking a few final players to fill out the remaining spots…do you want to play? We’d love to have you there to join us!
- Join us for the Imani Orphan Care Annual Charity Dinner and see what we are doing in and throughout Kenya thru the Imani Orphan Care Foundation—Friday November 1st, 2019.
The other thing we would encourage everyone to do is consider sponsoring a child. Often I find people get caught up in thinking that you need to spend thousands to support an organization when in truth it costs about $40 a month to sponsor one child—A little is a lot and we don’t need a lot… we need a lot of a little.
We have a ton of projects on the horizon for Imani and big dreams that God has given us to pursue—any step you can take to join in help makes a difference. If you are interested in more info, I encourage you to check out their website: www.imaniorphancare.comor reach out to me and I’d be happy to give you more details!
Let’s change the world one child at a time… Geoff
