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After college graduation , life offers endless opportunities. For some, that means going into a job right away, for others it means taking a break for self-discovery.
For 2006 Union graduate Kristen Sayres, life took many turns that ultimately led to her living and working in Nairobi, Kenya.
Initially Sayres wasn’t sure what she wanted to pursue or where her life was headed. She considered two options.
As a journalism major and photojournalism minor, her first option was to accept an entry-level position at a newspaper.
The second option was to accept an internship in England.
However, right before she graduated college, Sayres was given life advice from a woman in her church: “Make the decision you would want to tell your grandchildren about someday,” she said.
With that advice, Sayres packed and left her home in Memphis, Tennessee to work for a Baptist newspaper in England.
After spending almost four months there without success in acquiring a visa to get a full-time job, Sayres returned to Memphis.
It was while she was living in an international Christian community that Sayres received an offer to travel abroad again. This time, she was headed for Africa.
In 2009, three years after graduation, she was working with various non-profits as a photographer. A documentary project for Africastories.com on street boys in Nairobi impacted her in a way the led her to believe she had found her calling.
Sayres returned to the United States, but had Africa on her mind.
Looking back, Sayres said, “God used that experience to call me back to Kenya.”
In 2011, Sayres returned to Nairobi, Kenya to work more with the street boys, along with her friend Eunice Ng’ang’a.
Sayres said the first three years in Africa were spent working on the streets, getting to know the boys living there and helping when and where they were able. They even opened their home to the boys as they transitioned to life off the streets.
After spending two years in Nairobi visiting organizations that assisted street children, Sayres got the opportunity to run a shelter.
Her mother, a real-estate agent in Memphis, befriended a client who spent a lot of time in Kenya. His wife had opened up a home for boys living on the street.
After the woman who ran the shelter passed away in 2013, Sayres received a call asking if she would like the position of running the shelter.
Both Sayres and Ng’ang’a now both serve as trustees for Naivasha Children’s Shelter.
The shelter’s mission is to, “rescue children from the streets and provide them with the love, care, guidance, and support they need to become productive and responsible members of society.”
After visiting other shelters in earlier years, Sayres saw that reuniting the boys with their families was their best option for living full and successful lives and staying off the streets.
“Eighty percent of the children in long-term institutions, like orphanages, actually have families that would like to care for them,” Sayres said, “but for whatever reason, they are unable. That’s why I really believe in the work of the shelter—to reunite boys with their families, and to help the families to be empowered to care for their own children.”
This is what Sayres and Ng’ang’a did with the boys who lived with them in their first few years in Africa. Most of the boys are now living with their families and attending school.
Sayres and Ng’ang’a brought this concept with them to the Naivasha Children’s Shelter and have reunited about 23 boys with their families.
A social worker at the shelter works to find the boys’ families and mediates to fix the problems that led to the boys leaving their homes.
Naivasha Children’s Shelter offers programs such as home visits and counseling for the families. For the boys, the shelter provides drug education, life skills classes, individual and group counseling and recreational activities.
Sayres said this year also brought change to the shelter, as it was the first time they brought boys straight from the streets, “with the intention of rehabilitation and reintegration.”
There are currently 39 boys living in the shelter, with another seven being added this month.
The shelter’s goal is to rehabilitate between 30-40 boys each year.
Sayres’ position of running the shelter in not paid, but is done out of love for the boys and their wellbeing.
“I feel like our lives have become tied together,” Sayres said.
Sayres is on call at all hours of the day and night, sometimes receiving a phone call at 2 a.m. from a boy at prison or a hospital, and then, Sayres said, the boy’s problems become her problems.
“There is a way you can hold someone at a distance, so that their problems are not necessarily your problems,” Sayres said. “But I don’t think that is real love. At some point, I learned to love these boys unconditionally.”
This unconditional love can come with a cost, however. The longer that Sayres is in the field and working with these boys, the more boys she becomes connected with and for whom she is responsible.
Sayres said that when she graduated college, this is not want she imagined her life would look like.
“I think I would say that a job that is also your calling is the exception to the norm,” Sayres said, “not the norm. It’s ok to do a job that is not your calling—you can still find the specific thing that God has called you to in your life. Also, a calling isn’t necessarily for your whole life. It can change.”
Sayres is still trying to figure out the ultimate direction of her life, but is confident in where she is currently and the mission of what she is doing.
“I realized that my identity was really tied up in being a photojournalist,” Sayres said. “So I have made a really intentional decision to separate my life from my work.”
Although she makes a living through her photography, Sayres still feels the direction of her life shifting.
“At one point, photojournalism was really my calling, but I don’t think it is anymore. It is still an amazing job that I feel blessed to do, but I think my calling is much more tied up in community and in Kenya now.”
The feeling of community is important to Sayres. She said she feels as though we were created for community and, “God has called [her] to this particular place.”
Her day-to-day operations of the facility are all about fostering this community.
Lately, she has begun her day by going to the streets early in the morning with a social worker to meet with boys living there. They talk about their lives and about changing them for the better.
Then they eat breakfast together in a tin-shack hotel and play football together or go swimming in the lake.
But it isn’t all games, though. Sayres also does administrative work such as overseeing programs, finances and coordinating volunteers.
Sayres foresees herself staying in Nairobi helping the boys for both the immediate and distant future. She wants to see the boys grow up, finish school and start families.
“I feel settled in Kenya,” she said. “I’ve been here for about six years total. It feels like home to me. I can’t imagine leaving the boys right now, to be honest. Or, I guess I can imagine it, but it’s really difficult.”
If you are interested in helping Naivasha Children’s Shelter financially, donations can be sent to:
Friends of Naivasha Children’s Shelter, Inc.
20 South Dudley, Suite 900
Memphis, Tennessee 38103 USA
