“Now Is The Time”

Lindseys Embark On Adventure From The Heart

WAITSBURG- Not quite a quarter century on the planet, Cole and Brittany Lindsey found themselves at a crossroads late last year.

Cole, now 25, had worked as a Department of Ecology contract biologist doing environmental impact assessments at Hanford for three years, while Brittany, 24, was working as an emergency room nurse at Kadlec in the Tri Cities.

The lease on their rental came up, and they needed a change. Plus, they were ready to give in to a serious travel bug that had infected Brittany at an early age.

"We were looking for a chance to do something new," said Cole, son of John and Dinah Lindsey of Waitsburg. "We thought: 'Now is the time.'"

They didn't have to wait long for serendipity, fate, divine inspiration, whichever one chooses to describe the events leading up to the mission trip on which they embarked last week.

One day around Christmas, Brittany's mom handed them a flyer she found at the Sunset Presbyterian Church, her family's church in Portland. It was an announcement for a volunteer mission to Kenya organized by Orphans Overseas.

The young couple realized right away that this was their calling.

"I've always wanted to go to Africa," said Brittany, whose third-grade teacher inspired the dream after he returned from the continent with tales and toys that impressed the young girl.

"He was my favorite teacher," she said. "He was there on a mission doing good things for people. I remember he passed around a giraffe, a woven rug and other figurines."

It was this youthful experience, and the fact her mom was a nurse as well, that led Brittany to pursue nursing herself.

"I like helping people," she said. "I felt like that's what we're supposed to do here (in this life)."

Their backpacks, passports and tropical disease medications ready, the couple left for Kenya last week, joining a dozen other volunteers on a 10-day mission to the town of Thika, about an hour from the capital Nairobi.

Founded in Portland two decades ago, Orphans Overseas is a nonprofit that serves orphans and at-risk families with early childhood development, rescue care for abandoned infants, support programs for single mothers, family reunification support, domestic and inter county adoption and orphan education.

The world has an estimated 13 million children who have lost both parents. Orphans Overseas helps them in Kenya, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Honduras, China and Vietnam.

The organization also runs a facility in Portland called Community House for women who face pregnancy alone and need a safe place to live while they map out their futures.

With six other nurses, one physician and six general volunteers, the Lindseys will help out at the Karibu Centre, which was founded by Orphans Overseas and the Salvation Army last year.

In its first year, the facility served 16,000 children in its preschool, 1,000 parents, 15 women facing pregnancy alone and five abandoned babies. It also served 26,000 meals and facilitated 3,000 volunteer hours like those the Lindseys will put in while they are there.

After their mission, the couple will go on a fourday safari in Mossai Mara, a large national game reserve in southwestern Kenya. Then, they are off to Europe with a rail pass to see the continent.

On Sunday, Dinah Lindsey said the couple had already arrived in Kenya. The Lindseys being the youngest in the group, Dinah said, they already felt useful helping some of the older members of the missionary team.

It isn't the younger Lindseys' first trip overseas. They went to Vietnam and Thailand together. Brittany's dad, who is Vietnamese, still has family whom the Lindseys visited in the Mekong Delta.

The couple got married in Puerto Rico and spent their honey moon in Antigua last year. They met while attending Eastern Washington University in Cheney.

But they haven't been on the road quite this long, Cole said right before they left a week and a half ago.

"It will be a big eye opener," he predicted. "We'll see a lot of struggle. I just hope we can feel like we've done something good."

For more information about Orphans Overseas, visit: http://www.orphansoverseas. org.