By
Starla Pointer
McMinnville
News-Register/N-R
Sept 24, 2018
Some of
Tara Lepp’s fellow volunteers at the mission site in Kenya have told her they
always dreamed of helping people in Africa.
Lepp
hadn’t considered it.
“It was a
God thing,” said the longtime Linfield College sports medicine professor and
athletic trainer.
“I was in
church on Maundy Thursday, and I was blindsided,” she said, describing how, on
the Thursday before Easter in 2005, she suddenly realized she needed to use her
skills as a medical missionary. “This was all God’s idea.”
That
summer, she became a volunteer for Open Arms International, which was started
by a Portland couple. She flew to Kenya to spend a couple weeks doing whatever
task was needed.
Lepp
returned the next year, and the next. She spent more time in Africa each year,
occurring her mission work between semesters of teaching.
Each year
her duties expanded, especially after Open Arms opened a family-style shelter
for orphans and displaced children, then a school. She leads morning devotions,
works with the children and offers medical care when kids are injured.
Over the
last five years, she’s split her time between McMinnville and Africa, teaching
in the Oregon fall, then doing mission work during our spring and summer — fall
and winter there. During the short winter term, she sometimes taught a Linfield
course at the Open Arms Village, about a 30-minute drive from Eldoret, Kenya.
Last
January, 10 Linfield students, eight from the nursing program and two from the
exercise science program, spent the winter term with her for a class called
Health Care in Kenya. In addition to visiting medical facilities and personnel
there, the Linfield students sponsored a four-day free medical clinic for
low-income people.
“It was a
great experience for the college students,” she said. “They all want to go
back.”
When Lepp
first answered the call to become a missionary, she wasn’t sure how her sports
medicine skills would be useful.
Her
skills fit very well in the area Open Arms serves.
Eldoret
is located on the equator, but the climate is temperate, because of its
7,000-foot altitude. The high elevation attracts people training for marathons.
Local people engage in a lot of running sports, as well, in addition to soccer
and other games.
If
someone pulls a muscle or falls, Lepp can help. She assists with other
injuries, as well, or refers other cases to the mission’s doctor.
She works
with both the Open Arms’ children’s homes and its school, which also serves
youngsters from the general population.
The homes
include several large family units, each run by a married couple, sometimes
with children of their own. Seventeen to 20 children call the house parents
“mommy” and “daddy,” Lepp said, and refer to each other as siblings. Assistants
who help in the homes are called “auntie.”
“It’s
great. You can’t tell who’s the biological child and who’s not,” Lepp said.
The
children flourish in the homes, Lepp said. They have opportunities to learn and
live that they might not have otherwise.
Kenya has
an unemployment rate of nearly 70 percent, she said. Some of the children who
come to Open Arms were abandoned by parents who couldn’t care for them for
economic or other reasons. Some have no families at all.
Many of
Open Arms’ 156 children attend its school, although the oldest go to a high school
offsite. With community children included, the school has an enrollment of
about 250.
Open Arms
also features a mentoring and training programs for adults. One trains women to
sew and tailor clothing so they can start their own businesses.
Adults
and children also learn skills to run a garden and care for cows, goats and
chickens. They also help operate the village’s bakery, water treatment plant
and fish farm.
“We try
to give them marketable skills, and we try to make the village
self-sustaining,” she said. “And we do a lot to transform the lives of future
leaders.”
Lepp
retired from Linfield July 1. Now, although she’s keeping her house in
McMinnville, she will spend most of the year in Kenya.
She’s
visiting this month to clean out her office at Linfield and take care of a
variety of other business. She’s been telling friends about her missionary work
and the needs she sees in Africa.
She
mentioned that, as her missionary role expands, she will need her own
transportation there. Friends are throwing a fundraiser to help her purchase a
four-wheel drive vehicle.
Artist
John Stromme is hosting the event from 4 to 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, at his
studio, located on the second floor of the KAOS building, 645 N.E. Third St.,
McMinnville.
Stromme
has painted a special piece for the fundraiser; it features the image of one of
the children from the Open Arms school.
During
the event, Lepp will show a video about Open Arms and answer questions.
Donations will be accepted to support her work and the mission in general.
There’s
also a funding page for Lepp on the Open Arms website, at
openarmsinternational.org/lepp.
PHOTOS:Cutline
for photo included with article: “Submitted photo -- Retired Linfield College
professor Tara Lepp, center, with some of the children she works with in
Kenya.” Other photos from Linfield Sports Info, Portland Tribune and
Wildcatville.
