By Julie Wolpers

Please join us for a meet & greet/open house from 4-9pm on Friday, Aug. 23, to help us welcome our special guest from Kenya, David Kariuki. The husband of h.o.w? Ministry in-country coordinator Keziah Murugi and a member of our board, he is also the founder of a mentoring ministry for young men called Reached to Reach.

The event will kick off a new fundraising effort to help David and Keziah and their 2 daughters relocate from Nairobi to Naivasha so they can reside closer to the heart of our ministry and his. Our goal is to raise $60,000 to construct their new home on a portion of the land we purchased in 2016 for the eventual expansion of our h.o.w? widows project in rural Kinangop.

The meet & greet will be held at the h.o.w? Ministry headquarters at 465 Bristle Ridge in Cape Girardeau. (We will also have many new items for sale in our boutique!)

"We are looking forward to having David in Cape Girardeau for a whole week," said Michelle Outman, h.o.w? Ministry's executive director.  "He is a man after God's own heart. He serves his family, his ministry, and is a wonderful source of support to h.o.w? Ministry."

Reached to Reach is situated on land nearly adjacent to our 8 acres, which are much closer to the widows (about a 30-minute drive) than the nearly 2-hour journey Keziah routinely makes from Nairobi to meet with them.

Naivasha is a growing but largely suburban and rural area (population 181,966) situated near the beautiful, wildlife-rich Lake Naivasha and Mount Longonot National Park. A tourist destination, it's also a welcome retreat from the heavily populated, crowded city of Nairobi (with a metro area population of 6.5 million).

In Naivasha, David has built a small headquarters, workshop, and farm, where he is helping young men from the slums of Nairobi turn their lives around. Our vision for the h.o.w? Ministry property in Naivasha includes potentially a mission house, workshop, poultry farm, and gift shop, and we have spent several years researching those potential projects. We put development of the land in Naivasha on hold while we established a new Women's Empowerment Center for our widows in Kinangop.

David calls his ministry Reached to Reach because as a young street boy, he was "reached" and saved by Charles Mulli, founder of the Mully Children's Family, a well known philanthropy and collection of homes and schools across Kenya that has saved thousands of children in the past 25+ years.

Mulli rescued David from the slums where he had literally been set on fire --twice-- while living homeless on the streets. David succeeded in school,  eventually attained a master's degree in social work, and began his adult life giving back. One of the first to be saved by Mulli, he is now reaching out to young men who have aged out of the schools but still need help getting their lives on track.

David and Keziah have each visited Cape Girardeau multiple times, but never together. Keziah is at home in Kenya with their girls. Once they are able to move to Naivasha, they will be able to more fully focus on their daughters and their ministries without the endless commutes.

"We have been blessed by David's life experience and firsthand knowledge of the difficulty and challenges of being a street orphan in Kenya," Michelle said. "He is a servant at heart, and we are so thankful for the dedication with which he serves."