Kenya medical mission
By Wendy Atkinson, RT (Orthopaed), Alberta

On June 19, 2009, I had the opportunity to go on a medical mission to Kenya, Africa, and work with the children of Mully Children's Family and the people from the surrounding villages. I travelled there with my two daughters and a great group of people whose ages ranged from 17 to 86.

Our team came from diverse backgrounds such as doctors, nurses, construction workers, homemakers, EMS and students. Our oldest team member, George, had been on many missions, survived WWII and was clearly an inspirational member of our team. He left me in the dust when it came to hiking around the area, construction work or picking crops!

To give a little background about the people we were working with in Kenya, I would like to explain about the orphanage and how it came to be.

Mully Children's Family is an orphanage run by Charles and Ester Mulli. Charles Mulli was raised in poverty by an alcoholic father who was very abusive to his wife and children. At the age of six, Charles was abandoned by his parents and left to fend for himself by begging.

Charles survived like this for many years and eventually became a house servant for $1.00 per month and room and board. He was thrilled. Charles had also become a Christian, which he credits with forgiving his difficult past and moving forward through an amazing future.

The people Charles worked for saw potential in him and gave him a job as foreman in the field overseeing labourers. There he met his wife Ester. They have eight biological children. Through very hard work and determination, against all odds, Charles became a mufti-millionaire and had more than most people could only dream of.

But his heart was troubled by the plight of the street children in Kenya. These children were hungry and uneducated. Many turned to crime, prostitution and drugs to survive. Some were infected by HIV. All were abandoned and unloved.

One by one, Charles and Ester started taking these children in and giving them food, clothes, education and, most of all, the love of a family.

Over the years, the Mulli's adopted family has grown to more than 2,000. The centres in Ndalani and Yatta have 1,000 children living there. The other four centres provide food and education during the day and the children return to their villages at night.