Agogo!

Agogo is one boy who will force you to smile. He walks around with pride lifting his shoulders but when you chat with him, you realize he is just a fun loving young man. He has been a source of amusement for Kelvin and I over the last few weeks with his boyish antics and his naive comments. He has surprised us by stepping up his game and becoming one of our top scorers. When he scores, he just looks at Kelvin with this goofy grin on his face and Kelvin laughs. 

Agogo only made it it gr. 8 and then his family could no longer afford for him to go to high school. He has literally been hanging around Kongowea for the past 5 years. He is a hustler. Despite his lack of education, he has managed to secure himself several short term jobs to help sustain him and his family. Pretty impressive for a young, uneducated dude like him.

Kelvin talked to him the other day to see what he wanted to do with his life. He had always wanted to go for a driving license. He knows that he could get a good job being a driver somewhere in Kenya or even outside the country. So I quickly found someone to sponsor him to do driving school and he is doing his first class this morning! 

Here is Agogo sporting a serious face that I have never seen before. He must be pretty serious about his driving. 

Many of our boys have not made it to high school. They end up finishing gr. 8 when they are about 14 or 15 years old and then can't move onto high school because their families can't afford it. So they literally just live in Kongowea bummin' around trying to pick up odd jobs for years on end. Right now, most of them are too old to go back to high school. It is still possible as some high schools will still take them but their maturity level is a bit higher than the students they would encounter. One of our goals is to meet them where they are right now and try to figure out what the best way forward is for them. Most of them don't want to go back to high school but want some sort of technical training. Many institutes only require a gr.8 completion for you to enrol. Some want to do driving courses. Some just want some capital to start a small business.

Slowly, we are helping to meet these needs. God has been making me to realize that I am not responsible for helping all of them. It's amazing when I have a prayer for a certain boy or even ask someone about possibly sponsoring one of them, and then all of a sudden, the boy has found his own means to go to school. It's amazing to watch God work around us. I feel so privileged to be apart of his work in these precious young men.