Our field staff are some of the most remarkable people around! Jackie Nyaga is no exception.
Jackie serves as In-Country Communications Specialist in Kenya. God is using Jackie to tell the story of children in poverty, the local church, and our ministry as a whole.
How long have you been at Compassion and what is your role?
I’ve been at Compassion for 10 years. For my first five years, I worked as the Assistant to the Kenya Country Director. For the past five years, I’ve served as the In-Country Communications Specialist.
I help provide a link between the field office in Kenya and the child development centers. We desire two-way communication between Compassion and our partner churches.
How did you first hear about Compassion?
Our pastor showed a video featuring Compassion speaker Tony Campolo. Tony was sharing the stories of some children in poverty in India. His passion for children ignited my own. I wanted to help the children of Kenya.
What do you like about your job?
My greatest joy is being with the local church. The Church is the bride of Christ. He has already chosen the bride — and that’s us! I think we often want to “improve” the bride.
However, I believe God has called us to help Him with the relationship between himself and the bride — not to criticize, but to empower. When Jesus comes for the bride, it will have dignity. As a link between Compassion and the local church, I pray I can help the church and children in poverty regain their voice.
What was your best day at Compassion?
A while back, I did a story about a child development center funded by the Complementary Interventions fund. It’s called Talent Quest.
Talent Quest gives children in our program who are talented in the arts a chance to develop their artistic gifts. One day, we went to visit a boy who was a talented keyboard player. He lived in a small, tin-roofed house.
We asked him what it would be like if he owned his own keyboard. The boy said,
“I couldn’t imagine it. Not even in my wildest dreams.”
That day, we gave him a keyboard. He was overwhelmed with gratitude. He played for us right then and there. He was so good and so happy. We were all crying … even the camera man was crying at the beautiful playing and could not take the video!
To see that raw talent realized was incredibly rewarding.
It’s unbelievable what some of these kids have had to go through. For instance, some of our kids involved in Talent Quest were suicidal. They come from horrific family situations. And for many of them, because of that, they were not performing well at school and were tempted to get lost in drugs, alcohol or pregnancy.
Through our sponsorship program and specialized opportunities like Talent Quest, we are intervening and offering hope in hopeless situations.
10 Comments |Add a comment
Hi compassion, i have learnt about your work here in kenya and would love to be a volnteer. How can i go about it
douglas makoyo
Hi Douglas! Please email us at [email protected] for more information about becoming a volunteer in Kenya. Thank you for you interest in helping to release children from poverty and God bless you!
A great job you are doing. thank you so much and may God bless you.
Hi apart from contributing money can someone give her time, if one is not busy?
Hi Lilian! Yes, we have volunteers both at our projects in the countries where we work and at events in the US. For more information about contributing your time, please email us at [email protected].
Consolata Lawrence
To
[email protected]
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ. I am a servant of God from Africa in -Kenya community independent
I read your message from internet and I get it interesting I
am appreciating your work .your work and practices are commendable and best to
uplift the general work and task and entrusted on us by the Lord.
Kindly I request you to give me spiritual materials me also am a servant of God and our
Lord Jesus Christ.Here in our church we are taking care of the children whose parents died due to the 2007 post election violence and HIV/AIDS.Please remember them in your every prayers.This is the blessing from God.
I will be happy if you respond to my e-mail. Thank you and
God bless you.
Waiting hear from you soon with love and blessings. Yours a servant in Christ.
Pastor Consolata
Hello Pastor! Please email us at [email protected] for more information about partnering with us.
Yes! God is at work in these little children. I had a wonderful experience during the Summit in Safari Park Hotel-Kenya when the Talent Academy children belted out nice tunes of praise. God bless you Jackie for the support you give to ministry!
Inspiring and such a model of Compassion. Great Post!
What a wonderfully encouraging blog post this is! Thank you so much, Katy!