The Making of Jim Buttons

The making of Jim Buttons is something that I didn't set out to achieve. It is one of those things that I kind of stumbled into. I remember being asked to joina group of doctors who were heading to a one-week mission to Baragoi, whcih is in the northern part of Kenya. That was in December 2014. The trip had come at a time when I was asking myself a lot of questions about my purpose and mission and a human being and a man. I don’t doubt my mission. It is only that I find myself having nothing to offer despite the fact that I have a burning desire to impact the lives of children, especially boys.

I have been working on a zero budget ever since I started Lifesong Kenya. The night before I joined the doctors, I spend a sleepless night, thinking about what I had to offer. I had been told that the children I was going to meet did not speak or understand English and Swahili. And because of that, I found myself scrapping my original plan of reading and donating story books off my list of things to do.

Lifesong Kenya receives a lot of clothes and books that we donate to children in Kenya. As I sat, thinking about my options, I saw that some of ths shirts we had received as donations were ither oversized or were in a bad shape. However, the buttons were all in good contidtion. And that is how I begun harvesting buttons.

When the mission bus came to pick me in the morning, I had already bought a set of sewing needles and sewing thread. As the doctors kept treating and nursing the sick, I kept sewing buttons for children. And soon, everyone on the trip begun calling me Jim Buttons. Since then, I have decided to keep working towards achieving my vision and mission in life. Funding and resources is very important. But I won't let failure to get it stop me from pursuing my dreams.

I will be resuming our work this Wednesday and I look forward to using buttons to impact the lives of the children and young people that I will be coming into contact with this year. You can follow my story and get to know more about Jim Buttons on The Making of Jim Buttons blog.