Supply the Love: Light of Hope in Kenya
Supply the Love: We supply the camera and film and you supply the love! We would love to have you be an ambassador of Print the Love! If you are traveling to an under-resourced community anywhere on the globe in the next year and would like to participate in spreading random photo kindness to the local people, lets chat! Together we can make a difference! Application is online.
The Supply the Love program is 100% supported by donors. If you are not travelling, you can still donate funds towards the camera and film for those who are.
As part of the program, we ask that ambassadors write a short description of their experience. All the words are their own.
Mark in Kenya
A team of 4 married couples from Plymouth Covenant Church went to Kenya to visit the girls and staff at Light of Hope (LOH) in early January 2024. Light of Hope is in a part of the world too often defined by poverty, but there also sits Light of Hope, a girls’ school in Kenya that empowers the young girls it serves to break free from the cycle of poverty, abandonment, and abuse. LOH cares for the whole girl by providing food, shelter, health care, counseling, faith, and education in a safe and loving family environment. It’s a home that makes room for another sister at the table.
In addition to getting to know the girls, and them us, we played games, sang songs, and shared testimonies and meals together over our 5-day stay. We took a couple pictures two days prior to the day of the photo shoot to get them primed for picture day and the seventy girls aged 3-14 were very excited to have their pictures taken! Most, if not all, had never had a picture of themselves. While I managed the camera and film, others on the team helped to arrange the very excited girls (the hardest job) while still others helped them dress up with necklaces, dresses, skirts, tiaras and feather boas…they had a blast, as did we.
Several on the team were able to participate in a rescue where a drug-addicted mother of 5 was willing to allow the two youngest daughters, ages 9 and 11, to leave the abject poverty, neglectful and abusive situation they lived in to attend Light of Hope. The girls were welcomed into the sisterhood with open arms and songs sung by the many girls at LOH who could relate to them very well, with many having come out of similar living situations.
Having access to the camera and film from Print the Love provided a very unique opportunity in this particular situation. The girls’ 14-year-old brother came with us in the van back to LOH accompanied by the social worker and the community leader who had brought these girls to our attention. They entire community was concerned for the girls given the circumstances they lived in. Because the mother couldn’t afford rent, the door to their living space, a ten-by-ten foot room, had been removed by the landlord. Not a safe place for these girls by any account. The brother was very concerned for his sisters and was comforted to see how the girls were received; it was clearly bittersweet for him. We were able to send pictures of his sisters along with their new sisters, those who had surrounded and warmly welcomed them in this new place. He will surely cherish this memory of his sisters in perpetuity as a result of the pictures we sent. The pictures were intended to be shared with the remaining family members, including the mother, and two older sisters.
The girls were so thankful for the pictures and the dress up opportunity and the team and I are so appreciative of Print the Love’s generosity in loaning us the equipment. The process was easy to initiate, the camera was easy to learn to use and the pictures turned out great, leveraging some amazing smiles from this beautiful sisterhood.
With sincere thanks and blessings to all at Print the Love,
Mark
