Lokina’s Story

I can remember meeting Lokina.

She was hard to miss – even as a group of Maasai women welcomed us with their traditional song, Lokina stood out, a statuesque woman draped in a royal blue kanga fabric with a bright smile.

It was only later that I noticed how she kept her arms wrapped around her middle. One of the other ladies on the Women’s Circle of Caring trip with me knew a bit of her story, that she had a form of epilepsy and had fallen into a fire after a seizure. She could not fully straighten her arms, the scar tissue from burns was too thick.

Living in the bush of Africa is difficult enough. Feeding your children and managing your household while your husband herded cattle possibly hundreds of miles away is quite another. And Lokina’s husband left as her condition worsened. She was truly on her own.

Or was she? One of the things we focused on with Women’s Circle of Caring was how women can minister to one another. We, a group of American women from all ages and stages of life, could minister to and with women in Kenya, and we can help them see how they need each other.

In the few years that Women’s Circle of Caring visited a region where OneChild served, we saw a true community form among the women. Their focus was caring for their children, and yet they themselves benefited as well. We saw hearts knit together — across cultures, and across a community.

Lokina’s story is a powerful one. She learned more about her own worth because others were willing to invest in her – very similar to the sponsorship model she saw transform her own son.