Carol from Kearny, AZ

Back in college in the 1960s my roommate was a girl from the Congo named Ruth Musunu. We parted in 1968 and didn't see each other again for 37 years. But we kept in touch. We each raised a family and were happy when email made it easier to stay connected. She started a non governmental organization in Cameroon where she and her husband had settled, and in 2007 our college, Linfield College of McMinnville, Oregon, sent 15 nursing students to work with women and children in the villages her NGO (Women, Environment, and Health (WEH))serves near Douala. The students returned and asked that Ruth be their commencement speaker. So at Linfield commencement in 2007 we finally saw each other again. Others of her friends and I who gathered there fancied that we could buy a 4-wheel drive pickup for the NGO so its workers could get to the orphans in the villages over the dreadful roads, even in the rainy season. It took us 1 1/2 years, but we did it. We started a non-profit called The Friends of WEH and raised $25,000 and shipped the truck to Africa.

I had promised Ruth in college that one day I would visit her in Africa. Clearly the time had come. On the day after Christmas, 2008, 43 years after I had made that promise, I flew to Douala and spent six weeks with Ruth and her husband, Raphael Titi Manyaka. Our college again sent 15 nursing students for January mid-term, so I accompanied them to the villages and drank in the rhythm of village life.

I knew there was poverty, but you know things on a different level when you see people working 24/7 to eke out an existence. I knew there was AIDS, but you know things differently when you meet a young HIV positive teen who sold her body for a sandwich. Holding a newborn, found covered with feces in a toilet, or tiny twins who could die of malaria any day, moved my knowing to whole different plane.

The Friends of WEH (http://wehfriends.pbworks.com) continues to work to support WEH's work with orphans, and I pray to be able to go once again to Cameroon, this time with my husband, for several months.

When you know things on a whole new level, your response has to move to a new level, too.