CLCL is thrilled to announce that we have officially been granted our Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) status. After a year-and-a-half of hard work completed by our social worker, Wyclif Gitonga and our partner Rachael Mwikali, the Kenyan government has granted CLCL its NGO certificate.

Earning our NGO certification means that we are now an independent organization which will have our own board of directors, our own bank accounts and offices. We also now can raise funds in Kenya. Our transparency to our donors will also be enhanced, as Kenyan law requires CLCL-Kenya to hire an independent auditor annually to review our financial transactions. Despite our newfound independence, we plan to maintain our relationship with the Methodist Church Kaaga Synod by continuing to support Synod-sponsored schools. The Synod bishop, Nicholas Mutwiri has agreed to allow CLCL to use the Synod vehicle and two staff members when we are conducting food and supply deliveries and conducting Ruby Cup training. We will pay the Synod a fee for this privilege.

We have a remarkably strong board for CLCL-Kenya. Our chairperson is Jeniffer Murithi, former office manager for the Kaaga Synod’s Office of Vulnerable Children. Our vice-chairperson is CLCL-U.S.’s founder and president, Jennifer Wynne. John Bundi, a successful businessman in Meru is treasurer, and Wyclif Gitonga is CLCL-Kenya’s Executive Director and ex-officio secretary. Other board members are Eric Kimathi, a final year Ph.D. fellow in the Department of Sociology and Social Work at the University of Adgerin Norway, Rachael Mwikali, a social justice activist living in Nairobi, Pam McGraw, vice-president of outreach for CLCL-U.S., Steve Barber, vice-president of fundraising for CLCL-U.S., and Don Miller, CLCL-U.S. board member. Former bishop Dr. Catherine Mutua has also generously offered to serve as advisor to CLCL-Kenya, using her education and expertise in counseling to advise our board and help Wyclif with our children.

We look forward to great works from CLCL-Kenya.

CLCL’s recent trip to Kenya was a huge success. As in past trips, we visited schools and our children, had a fabulous social day with our sponsored kids, distributed food, held a Ruby Cup training, and met with our partners. However, on this trip we were able to experience some new events which we had not previously encountered.

Probably the most impactful and sobering part of our itinerary was a visit to the informal settlement, or slum, Mathare. Mathare is located in Nairobi and houses over half a million people. You may recall that during COVID lockdowns, thanks to your contributions, CLCL made several significant food and water distributions to Mathare. Our partners in Mathare, the Coalition for Grassroots Human Rights Defenders–Kenya (CGHRD), wanted to host CLCL to thank us for our support. During our two visits to the slum, we met and fellowshipped with many wonderful Kenyans. We distributed food to 150 families. We gave yarn dolls to children. We gave young mothers Ruby Cups. We also met with members of CGHRD and learned about their positive impact on Mathare, and we met with Mathare’s chief.

The day we arrived in Mathare, they had water, so it was wash day and people were filling jerry cans to use for drinking and cooking. At most, Mathare residents have access to water one or two days a week. Due to water shortages, the government turns off Mathare and other informal settlements’ water all but a few days a week. While the wealthier neighborhoods have water whenever they desire it, the poor do not. We also discovered that none of Mathare’s residents have indoor plumbing. There are rows of wooden wash rooms, which are just latrines, lining some of the streets. And they are locked (see photo below). Very few residents have keys. People use buckets for toilets in their homes, which they empty into open gullies running through the streets. When it rains, the sludge flows freely.

Mathare was grim to see and tough to write about. Words and pictures do not aptly depict the poverty we observed. CLCL wants to help in Mathare. We know that our limited resources cannot fix everything we witnessed, however we hope to be able to ease the suffering of at least some of the residents. We are starting by sponsoring three children in Mathare, thus enabling them attend boarding school in a safe environment. We also hope to extend our feeding program and possibly provide grants to a few individuals. With your help, we can give hope.

Also, when we were in Nairobi we were able to meet with an ambassador for the U.S. Embassy, Michelle Chen. Michelle specifically works for USAID. She was able to provide us with a wealth of resources for which CLCL can apply now that we have obtained our NGO registration. Two of CLCL’s board members, Suesan Patton and Dan Guenin are going to work together to research and apply for these grants. Hopefully we will soon be able to report on their successes!

Another highlight of our visit was the dedication of the library we built in Ntumburi. The children treated us to songs and dances in celebration of the day. We cut a ribbon, presented over $2,000 in books, charts, and maps, and planted trees. A few of the books we donated came from one of our sponsors, Margaret Jenkins of Longmont, Colorado. Margaret’s late son, Stephen Jenkins wrote and illustrated the books. We were honored and humbled to place these books in the library. We will be continuing our fundraising for the Ntumburi library, so we can fill the shelves. If you would like to donate, please click link below.

To all of you who donated and helped make this trip such a huge success, THANK YOU!

By Suesan Patton

Wow! It hardly seems that it’s been a month since that we got back from our trip to Kenya! A month ago, I was nervous about the trip and wondering if I would still be experiencing jet lag. But no! We survived our 20-hour flights, photographed lots of wild animals, and sadly, walked through acres of heartbreaking poverty. By far and away, though, the most amazing sights we saw were the oceans of smiling school kids!

My favorite day of the two-week trip was the day we visited the Ndiine Primary School near Meru, Kenya. Don’t ask me how to say Ndiine now—even though we practiced many times the night before. When we arrived, the school’s entrance was blocked by gate made of a large wooden post propped on a pile of big rocks. In an instant though,10 or 12 older boys ran through the yard—all in green sweaters—and jumped on the short end of the post to raise it and let us in. We were surrounded nearly immediately by a throng of green-sweatered school kids. They were so delighted to invite us in. There was no formal introduction...the kids beat the teachers to us. Instead, each of us was surrounded by a crowd of kids who were grinning from ear to ear and eager to shake our hands. They waited, mostly patiently, in a circle around us. So many little hands! But then an amazing thing happened! These kids didn’t just shake our hands, they gave us wonderful hugs too. Before I knew it, I realized that one little girl stood in front of me for her third or fourth hug. When she got to the top of the line, she’d go back to the end and work her way up to me again! With the fourth hug, I kissed her on her forehead too. What else could I do? The band of kids around me giggled loudly. That little girl was so proud to get a kiss—not just a handshake! By the time the school’s principal interrupted our hug introductions, I think I had hugged at least 100 kids and kissed my new friend’s forehead 5 or 6 times.

When we were “safely” seated in a room with the school’s 10 teachers, we learned that Ndiine Primary School has nearly 400 students from Form 1 through 8 (lots of hugs for the 5 of us!). The school is called “ordinary” because it is a public school. All its basic funding comes from the Kenyan government. (Many other schools are private and are financed in part by churches and local non-governmental entities). If you sponsor a child through CLCL, you know that, in Kenya, initial schooling is tuition free—a basic right for every Kenyan kid—ever since Kenya adopted its current constitution in 2010. But, individual school fees are not covered by the government. Ndiine’s principal told us that this school is one of the poorest in the area. If you sponsor a child at Ndiine, their school fees are paid for with your contribution. And, at Ndiine, there’s a very good chance your donations also pay for your child’s school uniform and food and other basic needs for their families.

Food, kitchen and clean water, new opportunities for support.

Since COVID-19, CLCL has been buying food for our sponsored families as well as for some of the schools our kids attend. Because we help supply food for this school, all kids at Ndiine Primary—not just CLCL sponsored kids—have at least one meal during their school day. When we arrived at Ndiine, we arrived with a pickup truck filled with huge bags of rice, corn, and beans and containers of cooking oil. And, guess what? Since CLCL began providing food, the parents decided to fill in the short-fall, and Ndiine’s students started missing a lot less school days already resulting in higher test scores.

Speaking of food, on this visit, Ndiine’s principal showed us that their school kitchen is no longer in working order and that, thankfully, the school cooks are being allowed to use the kitchen at the Methodist Church next door. The principal hinted that Ndiine would love to have its own kitchen some day! Could CLCL find a way to rehabilitate Ndiine’s kitchen? That request is now on the to-do list for CLCL’s Board.

When we travelled to Kenya, we took an “extra” (and wonderful!) person with us—Ed Walter. Ed is a volunteer from New Life International Inc.—a U.S. organization (https://www.waterfortheworld.org) with a mission to provide safe water to all the world’s communities. Once Ed’s suitcases finally caught up with us, he began testing water sources at many of the CLCL sponsored schools to find out whether their drinking water supplies are safe. Unfortunately, Ed found Ndiine’s water to be contaminated. You can be sure that both Ed and CLCL made more entries on their to-do lists for Ndiine.

Eighteen months from now, we hope to be back at Ndiine School for handshakes and kisses, Lord willing! 

CLCL earns new sponsors in a variety of ways – from visits to churches, to Facebook posts, to word-of-mouth advertising from our current set of sponsors. We have one sponsor in particular who has gone above and beyond in telling her friends about the life-changing events a CLCL sponsorship produces. Meet Nancy Rowley!

Nancy lives in Longmont, Colorado and began sponsoring her first child in 2015, after hearing a CLCL presentation at her church, Westview Presbyterian in Longmont. Nancy has visited Africa many times on safari and in 2020 traveled with CLCL to Kenya. Nancy steadfastly believes in CLCL’s high fiduciary standards and in their first-rate sponsorship program. Both her faith in and passion for CLCL shows— a whopping EIGHT children are sponsored through Nancy’s advocacy and willingness to share CLCL with her friends! And two of these children are being sponsored through a friend-of-a-friend. The pebble Nancy has thrown into CLCL’s pond is spreading ripples far and wide! And Nancy is not stopping. She is continuing to tell her friends about CLCL’s good work. Thanks so much Nancy for taking the effort to Change many Lives!

Nancy is not the only one of our sponsors or donors who has shared CLCL’s good work with their friends. You too, can join Nancy and others to help CLCL by telling your friends and family about our program and encouraging them to donate and/or sponsor a child.  

Sponsor a Child



by Wyclif Gitonga

Ian Johnson Muriuki

BA: Arts, Sociology and Geography

Ian is the first university graduate that Changing Lenses, Changing Lives, is delighted to have sponsored. He is a very hardworking, smart, and intelligent young man.

Born in a poor family, his life changed in 2015 when he was sponsored by CLCL to join a boarding high school. Before his sponsorship, Ian used to walk close to six (6) miles every day to and from school because of a lack of sufficient fees for a boarding school. With the sponsorship, he knew CLCL had given him a golden opportunity to be a better person in the future, to improve the life of his family from poverty, and become of great help to his community.

Ian sat for his KCSE in 2016 at Thura Secondary School and scored a C+, which helped him to get admission to Egerton University in 2017, one of the top universities in the country to pursue a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and Geography. Thanks to Changing Lenses, Changing Lives, and his sponsor, Ian’s educational journey has been very smooth since he has never lacked school fees or upkeep money.

We are proud that in August, Ian graduated with a bachelor’s degree in arts, sociology & Geography, and second-class division. During his graduation, he mentioned that his sponsorship and completing his education were indeed a miracle. He is sincerely grateful for the sponsorship and has vowed to become a change in the lives of needy and bright children in his community. In his own words, he will “… forever be grateful and always a proud beneficiary to Changing Lenses, Changing Lives…”.

He is joining Changing Lenses, Changing Lives-Kenya for an internship program in January 2023 to give back to the community by serving other beneficiaries.

We encourage you to partner with CLCL and help transform more lives by sponsoring a child or through your donation.

Sponsor a Child