So Many Children in Need of Dads

My dear grandmother, Phoebe Gillam, loved to crochet, make wool afghans and cross-stitched samplers. As with many such things, in youth we don’t fully appreciate them, later in life, we appreciate those admonitions.
One sampler whose words stuck with me through the years, thought I know not where it resides today, “To Know How Sweet Your Home May Be Just Go Away, But Keep The Key.”
Last week, I had the pleasure to interview Peter Odanga, field director of the Word of Life mission camp in Mombasa, Kenya. He was accompanied by Robert Grace of Dennisville who has volunteered at that camp, and has truly had his heart stolen by the children who spend a week at the camp that borders the Indian Ocean. He said it’s a place that must be experienced to fully appreciate what we simply take for granted.
It is the children who always bear the brunt of what adults do. According to Odanga, 62 percent of children who visit the camp have been raised in matriarchal homes. They have little or no idea about a father figure. Many fathers are either away in the military, incarcerated, or are addicted to drugs or alcohol.
While Odanga guides and counsels those young people, he also helps train counselors to work with those youths. He realizes, as does Grace, just how vital a male figure is to the growth of a young person’s character.
“Girls don’t know what to do, and boys don’t know their dads,” Odanga said. That is a plight not unique to Kenyan children, but to too many here as well.
Grace remains in awe of the children who want to survive and thrive amid a Third World country where an enticing lifestyle seems to be peddling trinkets and drugs “on the beach.” Some look at that life, and view it as the way to quick riches, but once they hear from an ex-addict who lived that lifestyle, many have life-changing moments, and decide to turn their young lives elsewhere to fields that will help their people.
Life in Kenya is far different than here, yet there are many similarities. According to Odanga, it would be beneficial for those considering peddling illicit drugs to make a trip to Africa. They would see poverty unimagined here. The scenes from the airport to the camp would expose them to see a bare existence, the depths of which make American poverty seem lush by comparison.
Grace is further enamored by the Kenyan children who ask open, yet perplexing questions like, “How do I choose a wife?” Every opportunity they get to seek information from him, they do. As he eats his meals, he is the center of attention, peppered with countless questions, many of which reveal the ache in their hearts for a father.
Odanga said the situation is so grave that when many young women seek a husband, they do not want to wed anyone from the local area. He equated their plight with someone refusing to seek a husband from anywhere in New Jersey, instead going to Delaware or Pennsylvania to find the right one.
He also said so many young men, who have been raised by their mothers, seek to take their mother’s last name, not their biological father’s. They have no attachment to their fathers.
“It is a disturbing statistic to know what is happening,” said Odanga “Everything in the home starts with the father. An absent father is not a good thing. The few that have fathers are the type that say, ‘Go ask your mom.’ If not that, they decide to watch television or hide behind a newspaper. The truth is, they are absent. They echo in silence.”
Grace said he takes over several pieces of luggage laden with T-shirts and flip-flops, and other small things we Americans would view as having little value. They are cherished by the Kenyan children.
He also noted there is a spirit of unity among the children, poor as they are, to help each other. They are quick to join together at the camp, to enjoy the good life that lasts but a week for them.
Natural talents of singing, dancing, making music and more are among the children have and freely demonstrate.
Gratitude, an endangered value among many American children, is not lost in Kenya, Grace said. The children are most thankful for small gifts as well as time spent with them, answering questions, being a friend. One of them could not understand that a man of Grace’s stature would travel an unthinkable distance from a country he would likely never visit simply to be with the children, to care about him. It was mind-boggling to the lad, and gut-wrenching to Grace.
Handed a large envelope when he was departing in December 2011, Grace was instructed not to open it until he arrived home. Safety en route home aboard the westbound airliner Grace opened the envelope and read just one of the thank you letters written by the children he had spent time with at the Mombasa camp. Tears filled his eyes. He could read no more at that time. When he arrived safely back in Dennisville, he and Judy, his wife, read each one. Sharing simple gratitude from children whose faces Grace could see in his mind as if they were his own.
At that moment, Grace knew he would have to return to the camp in Kenya. Next time perhaps for a longer period in order to help more children who yearn for a father figure. Having traveled to Africa and back, Grace appreciated home, knowing many of those children would never experience anything half as good.