October 6, 2025
As you get ready to come to Neema Village to volunteer you might be asking yourself, is this worth it? What is spending a week volunteering at Neema Village like? Let’s follow one of our recent groups.
Well, first of all you have the suitcases to contend with! Did they all make it to Africa and then is that picky agent in the airport going to charge me for diapers that I’m bringing in for the babies.
Smiles and tears from exhausted, sleepy volunteers begin to explode when they hold their first Neema babies.
As you spend your week at Neema we try to make sure you get to see some of all the seven Neema programs, from holding babies, to teaching classes, doing a Saturday VBS, holding the hand of an abused mom, yelling for the Neema team at the soccer field, praying for the water wells or just sitting and visiting with the neighborhood kids after church.
Seeing our Rehab Center for Handicap babies will grab your heart. These little ones who have been hidden in dark, back rooms, now have a sunny bright place full of music and light where they are encouraged to reach their highest potential. It is a joy filled place but be sure and bring a box of Kleenex.
Going on a MAP (Mothers Against Poverty) interview doesn’t happen for every volunteer group. We go when we are called. It might be with a woman begging on the street or asking for help from Social Welfare or in the hospital with no home to return to.
For these young volunteers from Wisconsin who can’t imagine what life is like when you have no where to turn, no family to help, no government programs to step in and you’ve been abandoned by everyone you know, going on a MAP mom interview can be a life changing experience.
And then seeing a finished product when a mom sets up her new Neema business is a great afternoon adventure for volunteers. The Wisconsin group got to see Florah’s new hair salon business.
Florah was homeless and sleeping on a church bench when she was brought to Neema. She was about eight months pregnant living at Neema when she accepted Jesus and was baptized!
Pray for a great success for Florah’s new hair salon!
Many of our babies are Maasai whose moms have died in childbirth. Volunteers love going out to the Maasai villages.
They are always so gracious to show our volunteers their culture, their dances, how to build a fire from donkey dung, how to make medicine from roots, how to kill a lion, and they might even kill the fatted goat for their lunch.
Going out to the villages for the GIFT program is one of Neema’s most important preventative programs. Encouraging these young girls to stay in school and not have babies at 13 or 14 is saving lives and giving them a bright hope for their futures.
And occasionally a volunteer group will get to pull off something really big! The Village church from Mosinee, Wisconsin planned, studied for, organized, taught and paid for our first Women’s conference at Neema Village. Three hundred and ninety nine African women came for the day of singing, classes, lunch, prizes and just a whole lot of fun. Was it worth it Wisconsin?
But if you just want to come to Neema to hold babies we are good with that too. We think a lot of volunteer lives are changed just holding babies.
As David Platt says: “Orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they’re not real before you hold them in your arms, but once you do, everything changes.”
But just one more story of why volunteering at Neema Village is worth it. Because Dr. Sarun was working late one night which he often does, and because he happened to be in the baby home just when baby Janet couldn’t breath, and because we had the medical equipment he needed Dr. Sarun was able to save her life.
But really little Janet gets to live because a volunteer from Fort Worth who owns a day care decided to go on a medical mission and watch Dr. Sarun work and decided we had to hire him and informed us she would pay his salary! And little Janet gets to live because some volunteers from Canada bought the exact medical equipment he would need to save her life. Was it all worth it? You bet!
Last year we had over 250 volunteers, next year could be your year and it will be worth it, I promise you!
Love and Blessings,
Michael and Dorris