Rehema Home visits Pal-Mac Rotary

Jonathan Schwandt and Lance Teitsworth from Rehema Home, Pal-Mac Rotary President-Elect Dianne Sloan


Jonathan Schwandt from Rehema Home spoke at our April 4 meeting. Rehema Home (meaning: “Mercy” in Swahili) is dedicated to the long-term care of abandoned and orphaned children, regardless of their health status, who have no family to care for them. The orphanage, started in 1998 by Jonathan's parents who live in Kenya, is currently home to 60 children, 50% of whom are HIV positive. Rehema Home is committed to providing, along with the basic necessities of food, clothing, shelter, and medicine, an education and loving environment for children who would otherwise be forgotten. Current figures indicate that, in Africa, there are over 34 million orphaned children. One third of these children are orphaned by AIDS.


Jonathan, who spent all but the first two years of his childhood in Kenya, opened a U.S. office for Rehema Home to direct fundraise for programs, organize short-term mission trips, and recruite missionaries who want to dedicate their lives to the kind of humanitarian works provided at Rehema Home. He shared several stories, some heartbreaking and some uplifting, of how some of the children came to Rehema Home. On the team's recent trip to Keyna, they assisted with a three-day medical clinic to bring much needed medical attention and medication to the area due to funding shortage at this time. Their actions of validating and caring for one child at a time is in the hopes of not only providing a loving home for these children, but to produce future leaders of Keyna who are able to suceed and give back to their country. 




For more information on Rehema Home and what you can do to help, visit their Website at www.rehemahome.org/.