Welcome to the 2010 African Adventures of Jen and Rachel

Welcome friends and family!  We truly appreciate your support during our preparation and travels this month.  We depart from Atlanta on Friday, June 11 and return on June 25.

For friends and family new to our adventures, here is some background information on me and how I became involved with Kenya Children's Fund as well as how Rachel became involved:

God has opened many amazing doors for me in the past year and given me countless opportunities to serve and glorify Him since being baptized in March of 2009. I began serving at Buckhead Church on our Host Team, and more strategically, as a women’s small group leader. I am so blessed to learn and grow with and from the women in my small group while growing in our relationships with Jesus Christ. Additionally, I believe my greatest accomplishment and experience to date has been traveling to Africa in June of 2009. The children of the Kinyago-Dandora community have invaluably enriched my life and forever changed my heart. The love, faith, and hope of these children are insurmountable even in their dire circumstances.


The Kinyago-Dandora School is situated on Nairobi’s city dump in one of the top-ten worst slums in the world according to the United Nations. This school is a home to them when the outside world shuns them as slumdogs, as trash, as inconsequential nothings. However, their faith is in Jesus Christ persists. Their joy and passion for God is an inspiration. This school is their light, their way out. They are empowered through education and motivated to become agents of change within their community. The Kinyago-Dandora School provides education, nutrition, medical attention and a Christ-centered environment to the children of Dandora who desperately need it in a place where education is not compulsory, free or easy to obtain.

I feel so blessed to take part in their story. It is through this powerful connection that I accepted a staff position with Kenya Children’s Fund in October of 2009. I now serve as the Outreach Director of Kenya Children's Fund, a 501(c)(3) non-profit Christian organization, and I work to grow the organization domestically as well as internationally. I also serve on the Education Committee as an Educational Consultant and work to serve as a liaison between the staff of both schools in Kenya and our US office. I cannot express how blessed I am to serve God’s vision in Africa!

This year Rachel Stolz, a great friend whom I met during undergrad at the University of Florida is accompanying me with Kenya Children's Fund to Kenya.  Rachel and I spent countless hours preparing for courses and projects, volunteering with children and studying for exams together in undergrad and graduate school.  Upon graduation, I moved to Atlanta, Georgia and Rachel moved to Dallas, Texas.  In January 2010, after losing contact after college, we re-connected and the rest is history!  Rachel felt drawn to God to serve in a another part of the world where His love is desperately needed.  This is Rachel's first mission trip and like me last year, this is her first international excursion.  We are very blessed that God has brought us back together to serve Him and the wonderful kids at KDS.