The Village Brought Them Home

“We can celebrate the amount of children served; but the real success is that ‘one day, they no longer need to stay at Zoe”  -  Taylor Summers

‍

Take Teresa, a mom who left home for Nairobi to find work and support her children. In 2018, her three children were rescued from abuse and placed in Zoe’s care, and she had lost all contact with them. Years later, our team found her, slowly reintroduced the children to their mom, and trained her in skills to earn an income. In 2023, they moved home to her for good. Today, her children are thriving in school, and Teresa runs her own business.

For years, our orphan care model was simple: when a child needed safety, we gave them a home, a family on our site, and a place in school. For Joseph, Peter, and Esther, that was exactly what they needed, and those five years mattered.

‍

But as we walked with children like them, we began asking a harder question: what if family isn’t a place we build for them, but a place we help restore?

‍

‍

I am endlessly grateful to everyone who stepped in to love and protect my children while I was away. To everyone who gave their resources and time to make sure my children always felt the warmth of a home and the embrace of a family: from the very bottom of my heart, I thank God for you. May He bless you all abundantly for the love you gave when it was needed most.

- Teresa

‍

So we changed how we care. Instead of only asking, “How do we protect this child?” we now also ask, “Who is waiting for this child, and what would it take to bring them home?”

‍

That’s why we went looking for Teresa. And it’s why our work doesn’t end when a child is safe. It ends when a family is restored, and strong enough to stay that way.

‍

Teresa’s story is possible because of people she may never meet: friends and families who gave, prayed, and stayed faithful year after year. Your gifts helped give Joseph, Peter, and Esther a safe home while their mom awas found.

‍

Because of you, a family that had been torn apart is whole again, and a mother who once had nothing is building something that will last. Teresa is not the only one. Across Kenya, you are helping restore entire families, one child, one mother, and one village at a time. This is what it means to be a village. Thank you for being ours.

‍

Zoe’s orphan care began by building group homes. Over ten years the work moved deeper, to the reasons children are separated from their families in the first place. Today that means rescue, counseling, school support, and the patient work of finding the family a child already has and making it possible for that family to keep her.

‍

Since 2016, 91 children have gone home to 36 families, and 53 more children never became orphans.

‍

‍