November 29, 2000

Christmas Greetings from Rubate College!

Rubate College staff and students are enjoying the Christmas break after the first term. Our first-year students have now completed their first term, and they have a new direction and opportunities to embark on a new beginning in their lives. The second-year students are two terms away from realizing their hopes and dreams.

During the two years I have taught and lived at Rubate I have experienced and witnessed the life-changing experience in many students’ lives. Rubate College has given students hope and an aim in life to use and develop the potential that they can be a living witness for Jesus Christ in their lives.

The majority of Rubate students’ parents are farmers who struggle to send their children to Rubate. The parents realize that their children will have a chance to have an easier and perhaps a better life economically.

Many students come to Rubate hoping that in two years time that they will
earn a teaching certificate that will enable them to teach in a primary school.
Rubate graduates readily secure teaching positions because of the high
standards maintained at the college.

My experience teaching and living with the students on the college compound
allowed me to know most of the students in a personal way. Living closely
with the students gave me the opportunity to know many students and learn
about their struggles to pay school fees. Virginia was one of the several
students who gave me the gift of sharing things about her life, hopes, and
aspirations as a young person in Kenya.

Last January, Virginia telephoned me out of desperation, hopeless and
frighten. She did not report to Rubate when the college began the second term. Many of us were concerned, including the principal and deputy principal. After the principal made many telephone calls searching for Virginia, she called me. Virginia was a very capable leader who was respected and admired both by the college teaching staff and her fellow students. She was recognized as a capable and vibrate leader as vice-chair of the student council.

When I talked to Virginia about her absence, she told me that her father and stepmother refused to pay for her school fees. Virginia’s parents, unlike many other students’ parents, own a lumber mill business, and thus they were actually in a position to pay for college expenses.

What makes Virginia’s story sad is the abandonment and refusal of some parents—particularly fathers—to take the responsibility and obligation that Christian parents need to assume. The term "my father has released me" is one I hear often from students.

The school administrators encouraged me to get Virginia to return to the college. When Virginia did return I learned that while at home she had not been allowed to leave her house and that the gateman at her home monitored her movements. Virginia came back to Rubate a shaken, broken person. She is from a polygamous family. Her parents divorced when she was in secondary school. Virginia’s father had two wives when she went to live with him. The difficulties and struggles that are part of this type of family contributed to the inner struggle and conflict that prevented Virginia from being the open and loving person she is now.

Along with high expectations and standards, Rubate College staff and administration take an individual interest to see that students are cared for physically, mentally and emotionally in a Christ-like way. Rubate College looks upon the students as their children, as Christ looks upon us with love and care.

God Bless,
Marion Strain

The 2000 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, page 37