This summer, Katherine joined a team from Discovery Church on a missions trip to Borneo, the largest island in Asia. After a long flight and a twelve hour ride on an open bus through the jungle she arrived at Living Water Village, an orphanage for more than five hundred children.
The children are brought to the orphanage by parents who want to keep them out of the sex trade or away from witch doctors who want to marry them to older men. At the village, the children and their leaders live on a diet of rice and come together morning, noon and evening for worship. School, sports, music and games fill the rest of the day.
Katherine, a professor in Durham College’s pre-health program, was pressed into service as a dentist, extracting teeth from young mouths with severe cases of tooth decay. “I will always remember Milton. His face was so swollen. I had to extract up to eight teeth. It was very painful for him and difficult for me, but I reminded myself that the end result would be so much better for him.”
Twelve hour work days on a rice diet left Katherine exhausted. Somehow, God still gave her the energy to interact with the kids in the evening. “Our missions team brought fifty soccer balls. You can imagine their excitement. When I noticed that the kids played badminton with wads of paper, I used some of my spare time to locate real shuttlecocks in a local market. You should have seen their eyes light up when I brought them out!”
Although these children will never be adopted – the goal is to prepare them for various trades and careers through schooling – two little girls adopted Katherine. “They walked me everywhere I needed to go. During the worship services they would sit beside me, resting their hands possessively on my legs.”
Katherine has returned with a renewed passion for the Lord and a desire to work with children and youth. She is one of our newest HSM youth leaders and dreams about taking our youth on a missions trip in the future.
- Pastor Peter
The children are brought to the orphanage by parents who want to keep them out of the sex trade or away from witch doctors who want to marry them to older men. At the village, the children and their leaders live on a diet of rice and come together morning, noon and evening for worship. School, sports, music and games fill the rest of the day.
Katherine, a professor in Durham College’s pre-health program, was pressed into service as a dentist, extracting teeth from young mouths with severe cases of tooth decay. “I will always remember Milton. His face was so swollen. I had to extract up to eight teeth. It was very painful for him and difficult for me, but I reminded myself that the end result would be so much better for him.”
Twelve hour work days on a rice diet left Katherine exhausted. Somehow, God still gave her the energy to interact with the kids in the evening. “Our missions team brought fifty soccer balls. You can imagine their excitement. When I noticed that the kids played badminton with wads of paper, I used some of my spare time to locate real shuttlecocks in a local market. You should have seen their eyes light up when I brought them out!”
Although these children will never be adopted – the goal is to prepare them for various trades and careers through schooling – two little girls adopted Katherine. “They walked me everywhere I needed to go. During the worship services they would sit beside me, resting their hands possessively on my legs.”
Katherine has returned with a renewed passion for the Lord and a desire to work with children and youth. She is one of our newest HSM youth leaders and dreams about taking our youth on a missions trip in the future.
- Pastor Peter
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