CHILDREN HELPING CHILDREN // CHARITY: Rwandan orphans' suffering touches Capistrano sixth-graders

DATE                  10/13/94
NEWSPAPER             THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
SECTION               NEWS
EDITION               MORNING
PAGE                  a01
STORY LENGTH          29 INCHES
HEADLINE              CHILDREN HELPING CHILDREN   //    CHARITY: Rwandan 
                         orphans' suffering touches Capistrano sixth-graders.
BYLINE/CREDIT         DAN FROOMKIN:  The Orange County Register
SUBJECT TERMS         CHILDREN:FAMILIES:CHARITY:AFRICA:OC
 .
  What Stephanie Brom wants to know is what you do when you're 11,
  like she is, and suddenly your parents are dead and you're in
  charge of your little brothers and sisters.
     "What is it like to be a mother and father?"
     What Nicolette Grams can't get out of her mind are the pictures
  a local pastor showed her of the water that children at the Kayonza
  Orphanage in Rwanda have been forced to drink.
     "It was all muddy and brown."
     What Chelsea Tallcott is unable to imagine is the sadness that
  children whose parents were massacred in Rwanda's horrific tribal
  warfare must feel.
     "If I had lost my parents, I'd be, like, crying for half my
  life."
     To the children in Room 6B at Stoneybrooke Christian School, the
  crisis in Rwanda is not about geopolitics. It is about fellow
  children who have lost everything.
     So after a recent chapel service during which they learned about
  a local group's mission to the Kayonza Orphanage, the children
  decided to help raise money for the orphans themselves  -- and become
  their pen pals.
     On Sunday, six volunteers from Safe Harbor Ministries in Rancho
  Santa Margarita  -- accompanied by an Orange County Register reporter
  and photographer  -- set off for Rwanda to succor the orphans.
     And they carried with them not only supplies and medicine, but
  24 letters from the children in Room 6B, each one addressed "Dear
  Friend."
     "I am very sorry about the suffering that you are going
  through," Chelsea, 11, wrote in her letter. "I will do my best to
  donate money and supplies. I hope that soon there will be peace in
  Rwanda. ... We will be praying for you every day."
     "I feel sorry for those of you who have lost your parents,"
  wrote Katie Merrimon, 11. "I couldn't imagine not having a family.
  You guys are so brave and helpful to help and take care of the
  little children that you are now responsible for."
     Comprehending the enormity of the horror facing the children of
  Rwanda is beyond even most adults. About 500,000 people died in the
  carnage that swept the tiny nation after a mysterious plane crash
  killed the president in April.
     Many of the casualties were minority Tutsis, hacked to death by
  machete-wielding Hutus. Since then, about 2 million people, most of
  them Hutus fearing reprisal, have fled the country.
     In August, three volunteers with Safe Harbor Ministries, an
  outreach of Calvary Chapel of Rancho Santa Margarita, went to
  Rwanda to help  -- and found their calling at the Kyonza Orphanage, a
  filthy concrete-block building 36 miles east of Kigali, the capital.
     There, about 120 children, most of them newly orphaned Tutsis,
  lived in squalor  -- starving, their wounds festering, their clothes
  in rags. The nuns and priests who had run the orphanage were dead.
  The staff had fled.
     The way the children of Room 6B wrap their minds around the
  plight facing their pen pals is by seizing on details they can
  understand. Water. Food. Clothing. Bedding. Family.
     "I would like to know what it's like barely eating anything and
  having the same thing every time. It would be really hard," said
  Donald Brockman, 11.
     "It makes me feel, like, greedy because I have everything I
  want," said Chelsea. "I have a house, I have blankets, I have food
  every day  -- three times a day."
     "They don't really have a life," said Dennis Idowe, 11. "If you
  don't have a mom or a dad, you don't have a family, and family is
  your whole life.
     "People over here, they have money and they can give it," Dennis
  said. "But they just think the next person will do it and it never
  gets done."
     The children have raised $63 so far and plan to send money every
  month to Safe Harbor, which plans more visits.
     The compassion shown by the children of Room 6B has made their
  teacher proud.
     "We've been really talking about how to live our lives for God,"
  said Mary Anne Fischer. "And they've just picked up on it."

  (SIDEBOX)
  HOW YOU CAN HELP

   To help Safe Harbor Ministries' work in Rwanda, call (800)
  797-HOPE (or 4673) or write to Calvary Chapel Rancho Santa
  Margarita, P.O. Box 80820, Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. 92688.

   To prepare for its next trip, Safe Harbor needs groups to provide
  collection points for donations, volunteers to help transport the
  donations, and at least 2,000 square feet of warehouse space. It
  also needs medical personnel and a water-purification specialist to
  travel to Rwanda at their own expense.

  IN THE REGISTER

   Reporter Teri Sforza and photographer Daniel Anderson of The
  Orange County Register left with the Safe Harbor Ministries team
  Sunday. They will tell the story of the missionaries' work at the
  Kayonza orphanage.