I’ve always felt a pull toward Africa. In my twenties, I was so moved by God’s love for the poor that I felt compelled to act. I intended to start a children’s home in Nairobi, Kenya. Kibera is the largest slum in Africa. The one-room homes have corrugated metal roofs, cardboard walls and dirt floors. Surveys report 98% of residents have witnessed a violent crime in the last year, and 66% of girls prostitute themselves for food before age 16. While there, a team of us went door-to-door and asked hundreds of mothers, “If you could change one thing for your child,… Read More
Mission Work
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God used the Covid pandemic to prepare me to do something I never imagined. At the beginning of the pandemic, I was an orthopedic surgery nurse practitioner. The world was on lock-down, so surgery follow-up appointments were virtual and all elective surgeries were on hold. I sat in our empty clinic doing telemedicine visits primarily for knee and shoulder pain. Meanwhile, I heard reports from the hospital of countless Covid patients dying each week. The work I was doing was important, but the hospital desperately needed help, so I offered to go to the ICU. In those early days of Covid, we didn’t… Read More
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I needed an interpreter to speak to my patients. I always looked my patients directly in the eyes when I spoke with them, communicating as much through my eyes and body language as I could; then my interpreter would tell them exactly what I said. In turn, I’d listen as my patients spoke back to me, absorbing as much as I could through their gaze, facial expressions, and hand gestures, and then get the rest of the story back from the interpreter. On my first mission trip to the mountains of Honduras, our bus and truck were loaded up with a… Read More
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The effects of HIV and AIDS have ravaged many families in Africa, and for Eldady Onkware, this is no exception. Though he was raised in a happy Christian family, at 6 years old, his mother passed away due to the progression of AIDS. From that point on, his life changed forever, as he was raised by relatives, while his father worked away from home. Unfortunately, he was overworked by his stepmother and injured badly by his brother. To add to his despair, his father also passed away due to HIV/AIDs at 14. His childhood was tumultuous, as he was thrown… Read More
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My childhood was far from normal and tainted with abuse, poverty, and dysfunction. Having never known a father’s love, I gave my heart away to the first boy who treated me nicely. As a result, I got pregnant at sixteen. The relationship became toxic, so after splitting up, I went back to school and started working. I graduated high school and a few years later, I graduated from Nursing School. Working and studying gave me a sense of pride. I had a business, my degree, money, my son, and a new boyfriend, I had everything. And yet,… Read More
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To honor the memory of our six-year-old son who passed away, we started a ministry that builds houses for the impoverished and homeless in Honduras. How we became involved in this is truly the work of the Lord. In March 2020, our son, John Luke had an ATV accident. He was a healthy, happy, beautiful boy. My husband, a paramedic, worked on him and got his heart beating, and we were able to med flight him to Children’s Hospital in Birmingham. He was put on a ventilator to sustain him, but the doctors prepared us for what was to come. He… Read More