December 10, 2015
White Ribbon Day
We are very excited that the Australian Embassy recently had a large luncheon at Amani Kenya for the second year in a row! This event is to highlight Australia's campaign to prevent men's violence against women. See this website for more details on this annual event in Australia:
The business for the Cafe at Amani Kenya is great, but even more encouraging is that the Amani women, many of whom have sadly suffered violence in their marriages and relationships, see others standing with them against such horrific behavior.
The event took place Monday, December 7th. God truly blessed this successful event. Everyone involved worked together seamlessly.
The assistant to the Australian Ambassador told us that the Ambassador usually goes into the office before an event, comes just in time to speak at the event and then slips out when his speaking is done. But today, he came straight to Amani, with his wife (who told us she loves to bring her young children to the Cafe), he stayed for the entire event and then he went into the shop afterwards to look around! His assistant said that hardly ever happens, and when he does that, you know he thinks it's a great event!
They had a wonderful panel of women professionals from around Nairobi who spoke against violence toward women and the Ambassador also spoke well on the topic. Pat did a beautiful job at representing Amani and what we do here and how we were so glad to partner with the Australians and Kenyans in this event.
They had a band from the Korogocho slum play beautiful music - all the band members live in Korogocho and are taught to play by an organization called Art for Music. They also played for the Pope last week when he was in Nairobi.
Really a great weekend of preparation and an outstanding event - God gets all the glory because none of us are professionals in catering, events, etc. But God used each person's gifts to contribute to the whole.
Bravo to our Kenya staff, especially Cathie, as well as Julia, Dorothy & Christine for excellent preparation and food! And the entire waitress staff for serving with smiles even though we know they were tired!
