Aiding Uganda

Plymouth couple assisting African orphans
South Bend Tribune  August 18, 2004
COMMUNITY

By IDA CHIPMAN
Tribune Correspondent

PLYMOUTH -- Steve and Kathy Smitha have worked for the past three winters with Care-a-Vanners, an affiliate of Habitat International, on seven building projects in southern states for needy families.

But little did they know that their friendship with a former St. Michael Church assistant pastor, Father Muwonge Expedito, would lead them to even farther far-away places.

The owners of the 26-year-old firm Top Hat Chimney Sweeps had kept in touch with the African priest since his 2002 transfer to Saint Scholastica Monastery in Duluth, Minn.

Being "good friends" with Expedito, they went to Minnesota to see him and "renew" their 30th anniversary wedding vows, Kathy said.

While there, the priest, who supports four Ugandan orphans on his own, presented an idea to the Smithas of a program to educate children orphaned by the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the ongoing HIV/AIDS scourge in Africa.

Expedito calls it the Come to the Rescue Association (COTREA). Its mission is to raise money to give orphaned children a chance to go to school.

"Education," Kathy said, "is the key for these children to find a balance once again in society."

Expedito told the Smithas that they would "need to go to Uganda to visit the children and see for yourselves."

In May and June, the couple, together with Expedito, undertook a three-week trip to Africa from Louisville, Ky., where the priest is working as a chaplain in Audubon Hospital.

"It was a grueling 30-hour trip," Steve said.

They arrived in Entebbe, Uganda, dead tired at midnight with two entire suitcases full of school supplies.

"We had more school stuff than clothes," Kathy said.

"Everyone was extremely friendly," Steve said. "The customs inspector said that he hoped we brought lots of things for the children."

Kathy said it was a touching visit.

"It touched our hearts to see the children and realize their needs," she said.

When she gave away the dozens of pencils they had brought from home, the children were so grateful "it made me cry," she said.

"We think nothing of a little thing like a pencil," she said, "but to them it was a precious gift."

The Smithas said that it is no exaggeration that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is "getting out of hand," Kathy said.

"There are more than a million children who will never know the love of a mother or a father because of this epidemic."

The orphaned children struggle to make ends meet by begging for money to enable them to have the chance for an education.

Come to the Rescue Association, a nondenominational, nonprofit group, gives them that chance, Steve said.

The Smithas and the priest co-founded the organization to help educate 16 of the orphans, who range in age from 9 to 19 years old.

"Weebale," Kathy said.

It means thank you in Ugandan, she said.