At the Foot of Kilimanjaro: How One Woman at 80 Is Saving Tanzania’s Forgotten Children

A year-end matching campaign will double every donation through December 30 to support more than 150 children in the care of Light in Africa.

The first time I watched the documentary Light in Africa: An Amazing Life-Changing Story, I was in my Orange County home with tears rolling down my face. On the screen was a petite English woman everyone calls Mama Lynn, surrounded by children the world had discarded, yet they all radiated joy. I remember thinking, I need to do something.

I met Mama Lynn at an event here in Orange County. After hearing a glimpse of her mission, I asked if she needed PR support. She reached into her bag, handed me a DVD of her documentary, and said, “Watch this.” After seeing it and feeling the weight of her work, I contacted her again, prepared to help. She thanked me but said, “You must come here first. You need to feel this place, see the children, breathe this life before you can ever speak for us.” She was right.

That was the summer of 2011. Fast forward to February 2013, and I was standing on the red Tanzanian earth, breathing in wood smoke and sunshine, listening to the same children sing. Everything I had seen on a screen was suddenly real. Small hands reached for mine, bright eyes looked up with trust, and my heart opened in a way I still cannot fully describe. I wrote about each day in my blog, so I will never forget the experience.

During that trip, I became part of something I never expected. In a nearby mining town, we rescued a set of nearly six-week-old twins who had been left alone in a hut with no food, no diaper change, and no care of any kind. Their cries were faint and their bodies weak. Helping Mama Lynn rescue them changed me forever. I held them, fed them, prayed for them, and promised myself I would stay part of their lives. To this day, I financially support them every month.

To understand the impact of Light in Africa, you need to know how it began. In 1999, Lynn Gissing was an ordinary woman in England, a social worker, mom, and wife who felt God tell her to go to Africa. She resisted, then found herself unable to move until she stepped into a travel agency. Minutes later, she had a plane ticket. Six weeks later, she was at the foothills of Kilimanjaro, opening her first children’s home 6,000 feet up the mountain. That single act of obedience became Light in Africa.

Today, just months after celebrating her 80th birthday, she is still there, still caring for children who have nowhere else to go.

Her recent update shows how joy and hardship often stand side by side. The children celebrated her 80th birthday with two parties and a troupe of gymnasts. Four days later, a national election threw Tanzania into chaos. There were curfews, an internet shutdown, burned hotels, closed banks, no fuel, and reports of gunshot victims. For nine days, they could not transport sick children for medical care. “Life was as if an apocalypse had happened,” she wrote.

Yet even within the crisis, there were moments of compassion. Her oldest daughter in Dar es Salaam, unable to leave her compound, passed eggs and spinach through the security netting to neighbors who had run out of food. It was the simplest and purest form of love thy neighbor.

Tanzania is slowly returning to normal, but the wounds remain. And Mama Lynn continues her work.

She recently shared the joy of three Light in Africa girls now attending university, all of whom were gifted with computers by friends in Los Angeles. One of them is Sophia, the Maasai girl who once swallowed a toxic plant out of hunger. Her organs were shutting down when Mama Lynn rushed her to the hospital, singing, “Breathe on her, breath of God.” Doctors removed the poisonous yellow ball that could kill a cow. Today, Sophia is studying to become a teacher.

There were other recent challenges. A Maasai mother sought refuge after severe abuse. Elders demanded she return home. The staff also encountered a black mamba crossing the road, its hood rising as if to strike. These dangers are constant, yet Light in Africa continues its mission every day.

When I visited in 2013, I saw resilience everywhere. Toddlers in mismatched shoes rushed into my arms. Teenagers who had every reason to be angry instead offered to wash dishes and carry water. Children in a mining town stood patiently in line for what might be their only meal of the day. Light in Africa is where abandonment becomes belonging and where brokenness becomes potential.

That is why Asante Sana, the United States nonprofit supporting this work, has launched a year-end match campaign. Friends of Mama Lynn will match every donation from November 1 to December 30, up to $50,000. We are already one-third of the way there. Your gift will support more than 150 children in full-time care, along with the constant emergencies that arrive at Mama Lynn’s doorstep.

If you feel the same tug I felt when I watched the documentary, here is how to help:

MAIL A CHECK
Payable to: Asante Sana
Send to: Joan Coleman
P. O. Box 8188
Newport Beach, CA 92658

ONLINE
www.asantesanafromthechildren.com

VENMO
@asante-sana

Long after the holiday lights fade, you will know that somewhere near the base of Kilimanjaro a child is safe, fed, and hopeful because you chose to say yes. Asante sana, from the children and from my heart too.