Lost Friends

This month, we have lost two good friends to Until Then. 

Hendri Coetzee...

Earlier in December my wife Dalene's cousin Hendri Coetzee was leading a rafting expedition in uncharted rivers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and was taken by a crocodile.  Hendri was an experienced rafter and devoted his life to his passion of exploring.  Hendri lived in Uganda and had a heart for street kids.  Using his rafting experience, Hendri taught street kids how to raft and used this as a positive experience in these kids lives and helped them to build their confidence.  Hendri's last expedition was part of a group from Eddie Bauer, and along with exploring new areas, their trip was to help bring awareness to clean water issues.  Hendri was planning on helping with Until Then's future water projects and always had a heart to use his gifts to help others.  Hendri was also an incredibly gifted writer and had a very inspiring blog called greatwhiteexplorer.blogspot.com. In his final post, after finishing a drop that had never been kayaked before, Hendri said "I would never live a better day"



Geoffrey Edichung...

Today I received an email that our friend Geoffrey Edichung had passed away.  Geoffrey was one of the boys from the Glue Boys documentary and had been living on the streets of Kenya for over 8 years.  Geoffrey always had a smile on his face, and was always in good spirits despite his situation.  Every day thousands of street kids like Geoffrey die from disease, accidents, murders, overdoses... and no one cares.  When a street kid dies, there is not a family to mourn him, only his friends who share life with him on the streets.  Most cultures ignore children like Geoffrey, and even worse, see their deaths as one less problem child on the street.  Geoffrey may have just been another ignored street kid, but we hope that Geoffrey's story can live on and help the hundred million street kids for whom it's not too late.

 

For Hendri and Geoffrey...

Phil