wfn.org | Couple involves daughters in Cambodian mission work

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

March 4, 2004	News media contact: Linda Bloom7(646)369-37597New York
newsdesk@umcom.org 7  ALL-AF-AS-YE-I{090}

NOTE: This report is a sidebar to UMNS story #089.  Photographs are available
at http://umns.umc.org.

By United Methodist News Service*

Involving their three young daughters in community outreach has become part
of a mission strategy for an African couple based in Cambodia.

Esther Gitobu and Nicholas Kithinji, missionaries assigned by the United
Methodist Board of Global Ministries, want their children - as well as other
young people - to be exposed to the lives of others "so they can better
appreciate the good life our God has granted them in their comfortable
homes."

Such experiences have occurred as the couple has moved beyond their native
Kenya to posts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, and now,
Cambodia. "This is also one way of sowing seeds in young hearts so that God
in his good time may call some to the mission field," Gitobu says.

Their three daughters - Jeanette Mwendwa, 9; Nicole Kagwiria, 5; and Michelle
Nkirote, 3 - have developed projects for children in the slums, such as
collecting toys and clothes from classmates to share with the children.

On one visit, Gitobu recalls, "they saw the children collecting bottles and
empty cans from the trash so that they could sell and make some money. When I
explained to them that these children usually make their living out of this
exercise, they started preserving the bottles and cans from our house for
them."

The family spent last Christmas with children at an orphanage in Phnom Penh.
The girls shared gifts and sang Christmas songs with the children.

Her daughters have remarked on how happy many Cambodians seem, despite the
poverty and daily uncertainties of life. Says Gitobu: "It is amazing to see
how 'simple things,' which we take for granted, can bring so much delight and
joy to our brothers and sisters in Cambodia."

 
 

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United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org