Faith and Destiny

Faith and Destiny: Connecting Sheba Education Students from Kenya to the 2025 Iditarod

Contributed by Brad E Schmitz, Founder of Alaska English Adventures

My name is Brad E Schmitz and I am a former English Language Learning teacher for the Anchorage, Alaska school district and own a tour company called Alaska English Adventures (AEA). AEA is the only language immersion adventure tour company in Alaska.

When Covid halted tourism in March 2020 AEA started developing pen-pal friendships between kids in Alaska and kids around the world who were learning English.  This started with a class in Germany and kids at the Boys and Girls Club in Seward in June.  Since then, AEA has developed pen-pal friendships between classes, Girl Scout troops, and youth groups throughout Alaska and 20 countries worldwide with multiple teachers in Poland, France, Turkey, and Taiwan.

One school AEA has worked with over this time is Sheba Education Center in Nairobi, Kenya.  Teacher Martha Owidhi’s students were pen pals with students at Homer Middle School during the 23/24 school year. During the world-famous Iditarod sled dog race this year 25 of Martha’s students in Nairobi wrote letters of encouragement to various mushers on the race.  One of these mushers included champion Dallas Seavey.  These notes were given to the mushers near the end of the race in Nome by a race volunteer and through this Martha, her students, and all of Nairobi fell head over heels in love with Alaska and the Iditarod.

In June of this year, AEA sent photos of Iditarod dog sleds to Martha and asked if she and her kids could build their own sled.  Over the past 2 months, the very first Iditarod dog sled in Kenya's history has been built by Martha and kids at Sheba Education Center.  Their sled is now mobile with wheels!  AEA is now working with people all over Alaska and the world to get Martha, her students, and their Iditarod dog sled to Alaska for the 2025 race.  The Iditarod Headquarters has even Sheba Education Center to do a cultural performance at the Iditarod education conference the week before the race starts on March 1. They will be performing traditional Swahili dances and even teaching the crowd how to do them!

Many great businesses and groups have made donations so far to help.  These include the Sealife Center, Anchorage Museum, Olive Garden, Big Ray’s, Hoarding Marmot, Costco, Tastee Freeze, Frz Dried Alaska, 202 Epicurious, Creation Coffee Roastery, Costco, Frontier Tutoring, and Mountain View Community Church!  AEA is now working with valley beaders, bracelet makers, and quilters to create Alaska and Kenya-themed products that can be sold to raise money for the purchase of plane tickets from Nairobi to Alaska.

With best regards, Brad E Schmitz