It all started with Teddy Bears

Why send things to Kenya?

My next-door neighbor mentioned her daughter’s maid was collecting used articles to send to an orphanage in Kenya. Loving the idea of having my unneeded things going directly to those who needed them, I swept through my house and filled many bags with excess possessions. The collection included a shopping bag full of naked teddy bears, which I bought at yard sales for their clothes. I put their clothes in my granddaughter’s doll clothes chest, so she could dress her many yard-sale dolls and stuffed animals for tea parties, movies, puppet shows, or whatever event she staged during a visit.

My neighbor’s daughter stopped by to pick up my accumulations, and we cried together in joy at the thought of how happy the items would make her maid, who had become her dear friend. The next morning, as a member of the Prayer Team, I stood at the front of my church to make myself available to pray with anyone who desired prayer. A fellow member of the Prayer Team stopped by to say hello. In our brief conversation, she mentioned Kenya, and I said, “Oh, Caroline, I have a connection with Kenya. My next-door neighbor’s daughter’s maid is from Kenya, and I just donated some things to her to send there.”

Caroline responded, “I am that maid, and I was going through your things this morning.” When I asked about the teddy bears, I expected her face to light up, but instead she was reserved. When I mentioned she did not seem thrilled about the teddy bears, she responded that she would send them, but they were bulky and not necessary. In a later conversation, I learned that many children in Kenya, especially orphans, would never have a doll or toy in their entire lives because budgets do not allow for such frivolous things.

The thought of the dear children in the orphanage not having a single stuffed animal compared to my granddaughter, who had 30 dolls and stuffed animals at my house, not to mention her own, brought me to a grand scheme, which I believe the Lord put on my heart: I would send each of the children in “Caroline’s” orphanage a stuffed animal for Christmas. When I asked Caroline how many children were in the orphanage, she said she didn’t know, and when I pressed her for an approximate number, she threw out a number, 400. With my mission before me, I joyfully set about yard-saling stuffed animals along with games, toys, and sporting equipment. Caroline, meanwhile, found out the orphanage she was supporting only had 80 children, but she resolved that since I had committed to send stuffed animals to 400 children, not one less than that number would receive a gift. Therefore, she had her contacts in Kenya reach out to other orphanages, which she could add to her “distribution” list.

As the piles of stuffed animals and other items accumulated, the Lord impressed upon me that I needed to communicate to the children these gifts were an expression of His love for them, not just a nice gesture. So I had a card printed with “Jesus Loves You” and a number of Scriptures on one side. Caroline got the children’s names and genders, and with the help of neighbors and friends, we wrote a note to each child telling him or her how precious they were to God and how much He loves them. In late September of 2016, we sent the shipment to 6 orphanages with 700 children, and I started accumulating for the next year’s shipment.

Our ministry to demonstrate the love of God to those less fortunate than ourselves grew out of a desire to give a parent-less child something to cuddle and love that they might know how much God loves and cares for them.

Epilogue: A friend donated three massive stuffed animals – chunky 5-year-old-child-sized toys. Considering them much too large to ship to Kenya, I gave them to Caroline to give to some facility for underprivileged children in the inner city. She responded that she would ship them. I said, “But, Caroline, they are huge and even with the space-saving vacuum bags we use to compress the size, they will still take a lot of space.” She insisted she would ship them, so I asked, “Caroline, what changed? You did not want to ship the little teddy bears I gave you, and now you are insisting on shipping these massive stuffed animals.” She responded that she had seen the joy in the children’s eyes when their got their own cuddly friend. She was forever hooked on bringing joy in Jesus’ name to these dear children along with necessities, as was I.