Empowered to Stay

Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.
Hebrews 13:7.

When the last school bell rings for the day, the kids gather in the courtyard, waiting for Dakarai to take his place in the center of the circle. The kids love Dakarai. He cares to get to know them, to hear their stories, and they love to hear his. 

Many of the kids gathered in the courtyard are under pressure. For the boys, it's pressure to drop out of school and work to start earning their keep. For the girls, it's pressure to find a husband and start their own household. These struggles are all too familiar to Dakarai, as he himself nearly quit school along with many of his classmates only a few years ago. But praise be to God that RiverCross stepped in when Dakarai was vulnerable to these pressures, offering him a support system that kept him in school. 

The course of Dakarai's life was changed when he was empowered to finish his education, so now he spends his afternoons empowering other young kids at school to do the same. For many of them, Dakarai is the first person that both understood their pressures and could communicate their right to a childhood and an education. Instead of dropping out of school, kids are staying late, eager to contribute in group discussions and check up on classmates who haven't come to school in awhile. 

*Although the stories we share are true, identifying details have been changed.