Last December 2021, Miriam Njeri, a poor abandoned single mother, had been living alone in the Chokaa ghetto community here, with her two children, Tiffan (3 yrs. old) and Liam (2 yrs. old).  Miriam had been abandoned by the children’s father and had been experiencing great struggles to provide even the basic care for her children.  She had manged to find a very low-paying job earning less than two US dollars a day, but her employer had recently began requiring her to work even in the night.  In her poverty, a few days before Christmas 2021, having no one in the night to help her with her children and nowhere to leave them, Miriam left Liam and Tiffany alone in their little rented shack.  On the night of December 23, there was a massive power outage in Nairobi and throughout Kenya, and there was no electricity at all in the Chokaa ghetto area.  Alone in the dark, the little children lit a candle and fell asleep.  Tragedy struck as the children's beddings and the little hut eventually caught fire, and both Tiffany and Liam were burnt to death.    

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On hearing of this heart-rending painful tragedy, in our utter grief and brokenness, we prayed and asked Almighty God what we could do, unprepared as we were.  Eventually, we came to know of the complete lack of a place in the ghetto of Chokaa where poor mothers such as Miriam, could be helped to safely leave their children to receive proper care and love whenever the mothers had to go out to work or to seek for employment.  And so, at the start of the New Year of 2022, despite our complete lack of means and preparation, in memory of Lian, Tiffany and Myriam and in loving honor of our Blessed Mother Mary, we prayerfully decided to begin in good faith our QUEEN OF HOPE CHILD CARE CENTER (HOPE CENTER), to help provide poor struggling mothers with free day and night care for their children, while the mothers are at work or are out struggling to find employment.  For as St. Mother Teresa has said, even if we cannot feed and help a hundred of God’s suffering children, feed even one.

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Next door to the small, rented house where we ourselves are presently living, we managed to rent five small dilapidated single room in a run-down bungalow rent-house, lacking any running water, electricity or working toilets or showers.  Nearby at St. Rita’s Roman Catholic Chapel in the Chokaa ghetto community where we attend Holy Mass each Sunday, we were blessed to inspire and motivate a few unemployed Catholic mothers from the choir to assist us as Franciscan volunteers receiving a small stipend working and helping us to communicate and care for our children.   

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And together, night and day working very hard with our own hands, we personally scrubbed, washed, cleaned, painted, and repair the five small broken-down rented rooms, and the flooded toilets, shower and wash sinks, and built a small kitchenette to prepare meals.  With some hired men from the ghetto of Chokaa, we were able to manually empty the dreadfully clogged-up septic tank, bucket by bucket.  We hired an electrician and a plumber and legally ran electric wires and water pipes from our home over to the rented house next door, to provide some supply of electricity and running water for the Children Center.  After making some other essential but costly repairs and building a wooden veranda extension for a small dining shed for the children, without any formal support or sponsors, we freely began accepting the most needy of children.

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At present, we now provide day care and evening assistance with full meals and educational stimulation and evangelization for fifteen (15) young children, babies and two special-needs children!  To the poorest of the Maua Primary school students whom we have chosen to help at our Hope Center,  we provide breakfast and lunch to 20 of very grateful thankful children. How beautiful it is to see the children being properly fed and care for with love!  Time is spent teaching them prayers and giving basic Catechism before serving a tasty meal.