Family reunion in Kenya leads to Elgin fundraiser for orphans

More than a decade ago, Roger Klemm of Elgin learned that his son's soccer coach, Gama Aywa, was a Judson University alum who had immigrated from Kenya.

Klemm had no idea that some day he and his future life partner, Kay Mills, would journey deep into the African bush to visit that coach's village and reunite the man with his mother for the first time in 20 years.

Nor did Klemm have any idea that raising money to provide for 500 motherless children who live in that village would become one of Klemm's and Mills' life missions after they retired from their jobs as a meat salesman and a school counselor.

Aywa is now 41 and works as a nurse at a Streamwood nursing home.

“After 20 years, she couldn't believe I was really there until my relatives put me on the phone,” he said of his mother, a subsistence farmer and Christian preacher who is known to the children in his Kenyan village as “Mama Alice.”

In February the travelers — Klemm, Mills, Aywa and a friend — flew for eight hours from Chicago to London, then another eight hours to Kenya's capital city, Nairobi.

Klemm said they found Nairobi urban, crowded and relatively modern — though there are huge gaps between rich and poor, and security guards armed with assault rifles could be found outside every mall, restaurant and hotel.

The journey from Nairobi to the remote village where Aywa grew up took another eight hours. Klemm said it seemed like descending into another world.

“People there mostly travel by foot and when it rains, they don't go anywhere,” because all roads turn to mud, he said. For drinking water, Mama Alice and the others in her village had to carry five-gallon containers on their heads and lower them on a rope into a “bore hole” well. Most villagers, like Mama Alice, make their living by hand-growing rice, corn and vegetables.

But Mills said the villagers made up for that poverty of physical resources with an outpouring of warmth for their rare American visitors. Two days after they arrived, 1,200 people held a party to welcome Mama Alice's long-lost son and his American friends. The revelers shouted “La La La,” danced and feasted on meat Mama Alice had provided.

But when it came time to eat, the Americans noticed a more ominous note.

“There seemed to be an endless line of orphans — over 500 — who waited patiently, each with a bowl, to receive one small scoop of rice, a little broth and two small pieces of meat,” Mills said. “And we learned that this would probably be their main meal for the day.”

Aywa said there are so many orphans not due to any one disease, but because lack of modern medical care and sanitation causes parents to die of numerous infectious illnesses that would easily be cured in the United States.

When the travelers returned to Elgin, Klemm and Mills sent Mama Alice enough money to equip the village bore hole with an electric pump and water tank.

Aywa, who stayed in Kenya for several weeks after Klemm and Mills returned home, said that “we turned a switch and the water started coming up. That put a smile on everyone's face.”

But they also now have a bigger goal — to build an orphanage and school for the 500 orphans in Mama Alice's region. Mama Alice already had been raising money for that purpose from within Kenya.

“On our way back to the United States, God put it in our hearts to have a fundraiser to contribute to Mama Alice's dream,” Mills said.

To raise funds for that, they have allied with the Elgin Community Network, a 501(c)3 charity. They will hold a fundraising event called “Into Kenya” at 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 30 at Cornerstone United Methodist Church, at 41W170 Russell Road in Plato Center.

The program will include a video presentation emceed by Aywa, Klemm and Mills about the trip, plus a reproduction of a typical dinner in Mama Alice's village — two strips of chicken meat and a bowl of rice.

Tickets, with a suggested donation of $20 for adults, are available from Klemm at (630) 234-6628 or at the church on the day of the program. Klemm said all proceeds will go to the Mama Alice Foundation in Kenya to help build the orphanage and school. Checks should be made out to the Elgin Community Network.

“I was one of those kids there,” Aywa said. Growing up as one of Alice's nine children, he said, “I couldn't believe that I someday could go to the United States. The United States was for rich people.”

But after he came to attend Judson University and recently became an American citizen, “I told them it was God,” he said. “God controls our destiny. Before I was born, he knew that I would come to the United States.”

If you go

What: “Into Kenya,” a fundraiser for Kenyan orphans in the home village of Gama Aywa. Includes presentation and Kenyan-style meal.

When: 4 p.m. Saturday, April 30

Where: Cornerstone United Methodist Church, 41W170 Russell Road, Plato Center

Admission: $20 donation

Details: (630) 234-6628