Flying Kites in the Holiday Season

This Christmas season, there is one website we should all visit and two online documentary films we should all see to make each of us thankful for the gifts we have. My wife and I have two close friends who live and work on the very edge of safety and sanity. Toby Storie-Pugh and Leila deBrunye have started a unique non profit organization to help orphans who live in extreme poverty and are faced with life threatening danger. They have named their revolutionary approach to the orphan crisis; Flying Kites Global.

Leila deBrunye is the Executive Director of Flying Kites Kenya and Flying Kites Global. She sent us an email last night from her small orphanage in rural Kenya which I have reproduced below. One of her young new arrivals had been diagnosed with HIV that he contracted from his mother at birth. Below is a transcript copy of her conversation with this 12 year old boy who was left an orphan when his mother died of AIDS.

Joseph finally lifted his head, "I have it?" he asked. And I said, "Yes and thank God we are able to look at your blood so we can get you really good medicine to make sure you stay just as strong as you are now. You wouldn't believe it if I told you how many people have HIV in their blood, - friends in America, family members, people on TV, sports people, doctors." Joseph was incredulous, "Doctors?" , he asked. He asked why we came for him and we talked about how he came to Flying Kites. I told him the story of how I had worked at By Grace for a while, and that I wanted to set up my own home with Benson- then I explained that I had always promised the kids at By Grace that when I could, I would come back and help them too, but this year we only had room for one child, so I said to Salome, "I can't chose between all my little friends, I don't want to separate them and I don't want others to feel badly that I didn't chose them." So I asked Salome to send me a child that I had never met before. And when she asked me if I had any hopes, if I wanted a boy or a girl, I just said, "Give me the smartest child in the centre, so I can send them to a real school." That made Joseph smile from ear to ear, as if he hadn't just learned that he was sick. "So that's how she sent me you." (We found out earlier today that Joseph came in 9th out 120 in the national school exam, despite having not been in class for over a year and without any review. I am so proud of him!). We hugged and he said that he was glad that God hadn't forgotten him.

Toby Storie-Pugh is co-founder of Flying Kites. When he is not in Kenya with Leila and their volunteer caregivers, he focuses his rescue efforts on the dying, abandoned and abused children in the slums of New Delhi, India. We recieved word that for the past month Toby has been living with the children who sleep on the railway platform in New Delhi. When the trains come in they dispense some of their left over food to the abandoned children. Toby is currently living in the train station comforting, feeding and protecting the children he has met there while using his cell phone to organize local volunteers and rescue efforts to support still more children.

Toby is less than thirty and Leila is in her mid twenties. On fund raising tours in Europe and the US, they sleep in the homes of their friends and speak in churches and colleges to raise money to support their non profit organization. During these trips, they attract and organize volunteers from all over the world to work in their orphanage to help care for the children. They believe in a hands on, grass roots approach to their work and Flying Kites with it's sponsors and consultants has developed plans and infrastructure that will ultimately change the way governments view their millions of orphaned children.

On their website, you can view compelling film footage documenting their relief work in India and in Kenya. Toby and Leila do not have apartments of their own and they do not own cars or have regular jobs, health insurance or retirement plans. Both are college educated and have supportive families and friends but choose to live and work abroad with their orphaned children, to be close to them every day. Individuals, groups and corporate sponsors interested in conributing toward their extrordinary efforts with the most neglected and abused children in the world may contact them through their website:

http://www.flyingkitesglobal.org/

Flying Kites Kenya Mission Statement:
Flying Kites is a non-profit organization that helps vulnerable children in developing countries. We are currently building a home for orphaned, homeless and abused children in Kenya. The children we take in have often endured tragic or traumatic experiences and often have no close relatives to provide the care they need.
As an organization providing for children from such desperate circumstances, we must define ourselves by the high quality of care we deliver. We do this by providing first class care and first-class education, by hiring the best staff in the country; by being innovative in everything we do, by questioning long-held assumptions and by always, always, always searching for the better solution.

This holiday season, be sure to visit this website and learn about an incredible non profit organization of inspired volunteers....

Then find a way you can help.

http://www.flyingkitesglobal.org