11/18/2006

Special to the Record-Eagle
Hearth to Hearth provides schooling for hundreds of children in Kenya and Uganda.

Country to Country, Hearth to Hearth

Organization provides food and schooling to children

By Gretchen Murray
Local columnist

Esther McDaniel of Union City, was perfectly content with her career as the publisher of a Christian women's magazine until an article submitted by Vicki Kritzell of Clyde, Ohio, changed her focus and her life.

The article, raising awareness of the plight of Africa's children in the wake of famine, wars and the AIDS epidemic, moved McDaniel to turn Hearth to Hearth magazine into Hearth to Hearth Ministries. Teaming with Kritzell and Kritzell's mother, Edna Shaffer of Beulah, the organization is making strides in providing housing, food and schooling to hundreds of children in Kenya and Uganda.

"This was something that just seemed to drop in my lap,” McDaniel said while in Traverse City to talk to several congregations.

With a lifetime concern for children and a love for Africa born from her sister's family's work as missionaries, McDaniel ran the article about a Kenyan orphanage in the magazine's November 2001 issue then asked Kritzell for more. But by early 2002 Kritzell was getting negative feedback about conditions at the orphanage, and soon it was shuttered.

Special to the Record-Eagle
Esther McDaniel, of Union City, talks with refugee children in Nairobi.

When the two got word that a Kenyan pastor, Maurice Odhiambo, had taken nine of the children into his own home, McDaniel knew she wanted to help. The magazine continued to concentrate on orphan work while McDaniel and Kritzell worked with the pastor and to open a new orphanage, the Hope for Children Center in Oyugis, Kenya in 2004. In 2005 McDaniel decided to scrap the magazine and focus her attention on founding Hearth to Hearth Ministries.

During that time the three women began fundraising while recruiting family members and friends for help with accounting and a website, and Pastor Maurice's insight into the country proved invaluable. "The economy is such that a team from the U.S. would have been impractical over there, and we knew it wouldn't create goodwill,” McDaniel said.

"The country is overrun with orphans, but 20 white Americans flying in wouldn't work,” Kritzell added. "We though it would be better if they build it (the orphanage) themselves. We knew it would be different from what we would do, but it would be what they wanted. It would be African style, and it would work for them.” Today the Hope Center is considered a premier orphanage in western Kenya. Built for $120,000 including the land, it houses 238 children, a staff of volunteers and a large primary school.

Incredible need quickly overshadowed the group's accomplishments and work has expanded to Kissi, Kenya, where the Glory Children's Center temporarily houses 103 children on rental property while a permanent orphanage large enough to take in additional children is completed.

Hearth to Hearth also is developing the Good Samaritan Lwanda Children's Home in Kenya where McDaniel said 31 children were dropped in one woman's care when the government closed an orphanage. Since then the number has risen to 50 children. They also fund the Bridge of Hope Center in Mbale, Uganda, working with grandmothers left to raise their grandchildren as entire middle generations are being wiped out by AIDS.

Though they've had remarkable successes, it hasn't been without the frustration of dealing with bureaucracies.

"The government inspects the properties, but in no way is involved with them,” McDaniel said. "There can be kids at the gate dying and they will do nothing, but once you bring them inside, the government tells you, you need to use certain dishes, certain beds, provide certain care ….”

McDaniel is adamant about ensuring the funds raised go only to the children even if it means talking tough. "We will not work with people who are in this to make money for themselves,” she said. "Orphans are a big business over there where the per capita income is around $281 per year.” She explained that some people asked a $200 per month wage from them. "We told them there are plenty of orphans here in America, if they weren't willing to work with us, then no-go.” McDaniel says they pay teachers $27 a month and their children can attend the school.

The women have to stay both tough and focused when dealing with the heartbreaking conditions. Kritzell says every day hundreds of children line up at the gate of the Hope Center, and only recently has there been enough food to help some of them through times of famine. "We know we can't save them all,” Kritzell said.

She added that Hearth to Hearth has previously donated $10,000 for famine relief while Edna Shaffer's Lake Ann United Methodist Church congregation alone raised $7,000, but the price of food goes up as the government raises the price of grain when shortages loom.

"The prices also tend to go up if an organization is funded by Westerners. They think we're rich and can fund anything,” McDaniel said. "It is so much better to use locals to do the buying.” Pastor Maurice's group is stockpiling grain now for the next famine predicted for the spring, and the children inside have agreed to forgo meals during the famines so the children outside can eat. Pastor Maurice estimates that they can keep 300 of the waiting children alive during a famine — 900 if each child eats every three days.

The conditions are so distressing that Edna Shaffer often has difficulty relaying them to sponsors.

It's Shaffer's job to keep in touch with 100 or so donors in northwest Michigan. At 80, Shaffer is the sponsorship coordinator for Glory Children's Center, and she isn't shy about gathering her PowerPoint presentation and heading off to talk to church groups. The wife of a Methodist minister, she already has 70 families at Lake Ann United Methodist "adopting” orphans. "How do you begin to tell people you're in the business of building a life?” she said.

How did they manage to accomplish such a huge undertaking? "We took it one day and one prayer at a time,” McDaniel added. "You jump in where you see a need. Everyone tends to wait, but you can't sit on your hands. Women sometimes say they feel powerless, but I say give a woman a cause and get out of her way.”