Our Story
Our Story began on the morning of January 9th, 2014, in a hospital room in Dallas, Texas. It began with a new friend, a prayer and a dream. Actually, two dreams were on a collision course. My new friend was Pastor Jacob. The prayer was for a successful operation. The dream came that night, and a voice spoke to me: “go out into the world and find a child that needs your help”. A few days later, I shared my dream with Jacob — and he shared his dream of giving back to his home community through the education of disadvantaged young people. Jacob reached out to community leaders back home in Kenya, Harrison and Daniel, and they identified Brenda based on her circumstances and capabilities. Brenda was that child that needed my help, and I became her sponsor. But then came another sign, a gentle whisper. Shortly afterward, Faith was identified in the same way and I soon had two girls to sponsor for higher education. We also had the early inspiration for the name of this evolving organization: Imani Kenya (“Imani” means “Faith, confidence” in Swahili).
Since that time, we have shared our dreams and experiences with several individuals and small groups, and through this process, as of 2022, we have 24 young people under sponsorship among 12 sponsor families. Nineteen of these students are girls, and five are boys. We provide our students with smartphones for the purpose of communicating directly and regularly with their sponsors and mentors. Students talk and chat with their sponsors via WhatsApp, and are required to send grade reports to their sponsors three times per year. Students call us “Mom” or “Dad”, and we call them precious. We put together a WhatsApp chat group named “Family”, and its purposes are to keep everyone well informed, moving together, and inspired to be the best they can be. This chat group includes all students, sponsors, mentors, community leaders, and a few friends of the organization.
In 2017, something unexpected happened. We learned about a community of over 200 families on the outskirts of Meru County that had no running water. The women spent all their time and energy walking three miles back and forth to the river to fetch jugs of water. The community was poor and not well educated, but it had fertile land as a potential resource. Our sponsor group rallied and funded projects to pipe water directly to the community; and to equip the residents to plant, harvest, and market coffee to the world. Thus, this entire community is becoming empowered to transform its own economy, and will be able to send its own children on to achieve higher levels of education.
We believe that education and empowerment are the keys to individuals and communities reaching their full potential. As we continue to grow Imani Kenya, we will remain dedicated to educating disadvantaged young people in Kenya, and empowering communities to do the same for their children, all for the benefit of Kenya and the world we share.
Brad Holcomb