When Nancy and Edwin Cahill arrived home from Kitale, Kenya at the end of June, they had just made their 11th trip to visit the Mercy and Caring Home they founded in 2001.
At that early stage, the Cahills brought back photos to share, and eight children were sponsored thanks to family and friends. Many exciting things have happened since those days.
As more and more destitute children were referred to them from the District Children’s Officer (many orphaned by the AIDS epidemic), the need for a safe place to live led the Cahills to purchase and develop a four-hectare site. This facility currently houses 82 children who live at Mercy Home.
Once the dorms were built, the need for a school was next. An elementary school was built and now there are 178 students with many coming from the community. The need to build a high school for the children became so great that in 2013 Mercy High School was built in stages, a few grades at a time. There are now 200 high school students, of which 60 are from Mercy Home and the rest from the communities surrounding Mercy Home.
Success stories include one of the eight original children is now a social worker at the Home, and another is a medical officer in the medical clinic.
Some of the students from the high school under the Cahills’ direction made a new CD for the many sponsors who have supported them for so many years.
On Saturday, Oct. 18 at the Christian Life Assembly in Gibsons at 7 p.m. come and hear the new music CD, view a slide show, have a coffee and dessert, and hear more about this exciting work.
For more information on this event, call Trudy Ruck at 604-886-9792.
