The following article appeared in the Charlotte Observer on May 11, 2009 on page 1B in the Local & State Section.

CATCHING UP WITH ... MONIQUE BOEKHOUT STILL DEVOTED TO HELPING KIDS IN KENYA

Monique Boekhout lives in the Lake Wylie community, but her passion is Kenya, home to an orphanage project she helped build, the Jubilee Children's Center. In the past six years, Boekhout has rallied the Charlotte region to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the orphanage. Boekhout, 56, has no intention yet of giving up her role as the center's largest fundraiser.
Following are excerpts of an interview by reporter Mark Price.

Q. What's the latest development with the orphanage?
We just got back from a mission trip. We were there three weeks. We put together two teams for a total of 34 people. The first week we had a medical mission with dentists and nurses ...Then we had a construction team, headed by my husband (Bob) and we built 14 bunks and 16 school desks. We've gone from 102 kids to 133 kids, a big jump ... It's a 15-acre compound total and 10 (acres) is for crops, to grow our own food. 

Q. How do children find their way to the orphanage?
They have no father, no mother. That's the condition for them to be accepted. They are (orphaned as) the result of tribe warfare or result of the parents dying of AIDS. Normally, we don't a have major problem having them come. They are thrilled to death to be taken out of the bad environment they are in. We try to take younger kids, 3 to 4 years old, because they are not so badly affected yet. It's easier for the little ones to forget all they've been through. When we started six years ago, we had 12- to 14-year-old kids, and some of them would just decide 'this is not for me,' and they could go back and live with no supervision. We learned from our mistake. We decided to deal with little kids. Emotionally speaking, most are good.

Q. What will become of the kids?
We don't want to help them for a few years and then put them back on the streets. Our goal is to turn those kids into educated children, capable of getting a job, getting married and starting a family of their own. All the kids in the second year of high school now started with us six years ago. I'm two years from losing my first one. It's bad enough to try and say goodbye when I visit the children for three weeks each year, so it will be really tough to see them go. But it will be a dream come true when the first one goes to college, and comes back to tell me they have a girlfriend or boyfriend and will soon marry. I'll be the one to give them a down payment on a home. That's my dream. And I will attend that wedding.

Q. Why is this so important?
I think everybody has a goal in life. Some people find it early. Mine didn't come until I turned 50. I truly believe everybody is put on the earth for one reason, whether God gives you that reason or whatever you want to call it. That's what happened to me. This is a lifetime commitment for me. It inspires me and keeps me going. There's nothing like when a child gives you a big hug, and says "I love you, Monique."

Q. What's the worst example of poverty you witnessed in Africa?
In the slums, you see kids playing in sewage and that's a pretty strong picture in my mind - little kids crying, trying to get water out of a rusty water tank, standing with their feet in sewage.

Mark Price: 704-358-5245; msprice@charlotteobserver.com
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