For Florence Juma, finding home has been a journey.

“I’ve learned that home is where you find yourself at the time – every point of arrival is preceded by a journey from somewhere else…” says this author of three books, including the well-received Away From Home: The Joys and Challenges of Migration.

As a result of collecting and reflecting on journals, letters, and photos of her own family - and recording her own thoughts and reflections with pen and paper - Florence’s life and journey have been well chronicled. And along with her husband Francis and their five daughters and two grandchildren, the journey from Kenya to South Africa, and then to their present home in Ontario, Canada has set the backdrop for this writer’s ongoing story of faith, reflection, and hope.

“I was inspired to write the first book [Away From Home] in 2004 as I was already living here in Canada, expecting anytime to go back home [to native Kenya]. After my first daughter was married, our second daughter engaged, and our first grandchild born, I questioned who needed me more – my parents and siblings in Kenya, or my children right here. I began to ask, ‘Where is home?’”

It was from reflecting on this question, and the desire to see the history of their journey recorded for the benefit of her young adult children, Florence began to document details up to that point in her life. But more than a family memoir, Away From Home allowed readers a unique glimpse into the cultural and personal challenges of immigrants sojourning to, and living in, North America. And for Florence, this book remains a written testimony of God’s faithfulness, even as writing the book served as a therapeutic way for her to step outside of often lonely and intimidating circumstances - and also helped her see more clearly the providence of God at work in her own life.

While in the past, her reader audience may have been restricted to her family and her community, Florence views her current writing career as a “Ministry without Borders,” able to impact and inspire many lives as she shares the journey of her own life. With Away From Home enjoying accolades and good reviews (see Reviews), a series of children’s books ready for publishing, and another manuscript in the works, Florence Juma is looking forward to sharing the testimony of God’s faithfulness and providence in her own life with more and more readers.

With a background in both formal and informal education, and a call to Christian education and ministry from the age of seventeen, Florence has never lost the inquisitive and reflective heart that was cultivated as a child growing up in Kenya – a childlike heart that has informed and inspired the writing of her current series of children’s books Tales from my Father. The series is a collection of fiction and non-fiction African oral fables of the early 20th century gathered among the great lake region communities in Western Kenya. The series seeks to depict village life in a traditional African society with the purpose of informing, educating and entertaining the emerging generation of immigrant children from the continent of Africa. The first book in the series - Zebra Please - is an attempt to respond to the identity crisis within the next generation of the African immigrant community. (Link to Product Page)

In Nehemiah 9, Nehemiah, Ezra, and the Levites open the Book of the Law to reflect on what God had done for Israel. In the same way, it is Florence’s passion and goal to preserve and retell the story of God’s faithfulness in her own life, and the rich heritage of her native culture, for today’s generation and for generations to come.