Who's Going to Harvard?

*107 years and Teddy, too
*It's not cheap to be a missionary.
*I can see the monkey on the razor wire from here.
*Excellent education, caring culture

In 1906, missionary families in Africa who were concerned that the only quality education for their children meant sending them to England or to the 
U. S. found some available land outside Nairobi and founded Rift Valley Academy (RVA), now under the auspices of AIM (Africa Inland Mission).  RVA is a boarding school with classes for "Titchies"(grades K-6) and secondary (grades 7-12).  Approximately 500 students attend whose families serve more than 70 mission-sending organizations. Many students are Americans, with quite a few coming from South Korea as well as a number of other countries.  The campus is self-supporting, with its own water well and sewer system. Outside electric power is backed up by an on-campus generator that is programmed to start seconds after power fails and has the capacity to manage the needs of the entire campus.

Attending...or teaching...at RVA is expensive, and all students and staff have to provide their own support, including paying for lodging, utilities (power for an electric clothes dryer is $5-$10 per load, fortunately only necessary during the rainy season, when even clothes hung indoors take three-four days to dry), food, transportation, and all other typical family costs. Steve Peifer indicates that their family living expenses are about $6,000 monthly, with tuition for Ben and Katie, their adopted Kenyan twins, being an additional $9,000 annually. Raising just over $80,000 a year while teaching and caring for a family is no cakewalk. This amount is entirely separate from the funds for the rural school feeding and computer programs.

The Peifers' "real job," the reason for which they came to live in Kenya, is to serve on staff at RVA: Steve as college guidance counselor, and Nancy as head of the language department and French teacher. AIM, which oversees RVA and the adjacent Kijabe Hospital, is a coordinating organization rather than a sponsor: they do not provide missionary funds, and will not allow a missionary to resume his/her position annually unless all expenses have been committed by donors. Steve and Nancy have been fully funded for fourteen years.

Serving in Kenya is not without its physical risks. When elections resulted in violence during 2007, anger was expressed indiscriminately. Steve said, "I was almost sure I was going to be killed while delivering food to schools" during that period. "I have never been so scared." Following the bombing of the U. S. Embassy, officials at RVA were told that they were likely the next target, since so many youth and adult Americans ( almost all teaching staff are fromthe U. S.) were there. A grant helped place a tall security fence around the perimeter, with concrete posts shaped like inverted hockey sticks, chain link stretched across the lower part, and barbed wire with razor wire at the top. The large chapel, a "safe place" for students to gather, had all its windows removed and raised several feet, so that a person standing outside could not see to shoot directly at anyone inside.

The threat never reached the fence. The story is that a group of nationals bent on violence approached the school, but turned away when they saw "a large group of people, all dressed in white, defending the campus." Some long-time residents are convinced that this incident, like the prophet's account in the Old Testament, was an example of Divine intervention.

As Kenya's political climate is always fragile, guards monitor fence-tall heavy metal entrance gates around the clock, opening only after recognition and approval have been gained. One afternoon, from where we stayed on campus, I watched a small monkey walk delicately along the razor wire for a minute or two before leaping to a nearby tree. Nature has a way of overcoming manmade barriers.

RVA's educational program has had remarkable success. Students at the Peifers' home one evening said that the school has been ranked second in all the continent of Africa, surpassed only by one campus in South Africa (Johannesburg?). Students' life experiences, along with their academics, have caused them to be accepted and even sought-after by highly-respected colleges and universities.

Steve commented that a student some years ago showed remarkable heroism during a tragic accident. A fellow student's arm was severed, and he reacted immediately, wrapping up the severed limb and placing it in his back pack, placing a tourniquet on the girl's remaining stub, and taking her on his motorbike to the hospital just minutes away. Because of his quick action, a visiting orthopedic surgeon from Stanford was able to reattach the arm, and the girl recovered and regained 80% of its use. Yet, when the time came for writing an essay to accompany his college applications, the boy wanted to write about athletic competitions. Peifer told him, "No way! Write about the arm!" I believe Steve said that he, a fine student otherwise, was readily accepted to his first choice of schools...and others.

One of Steve Peifer's hallmarks as RVA college guidance counselor is his fearless attempts to get his students accepted into Ivy League schools and, even more, to find schools that "fit" his seniors well. In a previous job, Steve had opportunities to visit more than 1,500 college campuses, so an early task was breaking the pattern of students' applying to the same few Christian colleges each year. In the fourteen years he has been at RVA, six students have been accepted to Harvard, as well as others to Yale, Cornell, Wake Forest, and many other highly-respected schools.

Tammy and I enjoyed dinner two evenings at RVA's cafeteria, observing these seemingly very bright and socially well-adjusted young people, particularly remarkable since they were so far from families and home countries. Not knowing nor able easily to guess, I couldn't help asking myself while looking around: Who's going to Harvard?