By Renée St. Martin Wizeman

As a young Catholic school girl in Wisconsin, Jane Holland read Maryknoll magazine, and dreamed of being a missionary in Africa. And this spring, the Immaculate Conception parishioner traveled from Polson, Mont., to Kenya, and fulfilled her childhood dream.

The trip came after Holland was introduced in 2009 to David Opap, the 35-yearold founder of Spring of Hope International. “I was really touched by him,” she said, of the initial meeting in Spokane, Wash. Holland’s interest in SOHI and connection with Opap convinced the great-grandmother to apply for one of SOHI’s missionary trips.

“I’ve never done anything like this,” she said. She was the only Catholic among the 16-person group of Christians that served in Kenya from May 19-June 5.

SOHI is a Christian organization, sponsored by a 4,000-member Christian church in Spokane. Holland said she experienced no sense of division. “I kept singing “Bind Us Together”– there’s only one God, one body. I wasn’t treated any differently than anyone else, we shared some beautiful experiences,” she said. The group prayed, read the Bible and had evening services.

Spring of Hope International was founded by Opap, who was born in Adiedo, Kenya, and eventually moved to the United States. As stated on the organization’s website, Opap returned to his childhood village in 2000 and was shocked at the levels of poverty and death from treatable diseases. “My eyes were opened to an Adiedo I never knew existed, even though I grew up there…I left my village in 2000 with a choice: Go back to America the land of comfort and keep silent or go back to America and find a way to repair Adiedo.” And from that visit, SOHI was born. The organization’s primary purpose is to “bring people of Africa into full knowledge and relationship with Christ,” while also working to reduce the extreme poverty with options that help people to lift themselves out of poverty.

While in Kenya, Holland worked in the slums, schools, a hospital and nursing school, an orphanage and in the village of Adiedo. The work varied from providing bags of flour to villagers, to praying, playing with children and assisting with a minor wound clinic. “Each person we connected with felt faith and hope to know that someone half way around the world cared about them,” she said. She was impressed by the awareness and love of God expressed by the people they met, even in institutions not specifically Christian.

The sheer immensity of poverty and suffering was heartbreaking, Holland said. But she returned to Polson with a new gratitude for simple living and a sense of personal connection to the people. “You know that this goes on all over the world, but now, it’s not Africa or Guatemala. It’s Millicent, and Mercy and Jonathan. It’s people, it’s knowing that these human beings that live in such desperate situations have such love of God and their families. God’s love shines in those people,” she said.

Since her return, Holland has shared her experience on a personal level, with other parishioners and her Bible study group, and with friends, family and neighbors. Holland is keen to see SOHI grow. “SOHI is David. It’s one young man who had the opportunity to come to our country and better himself. He never stops appreciating what the U.S. has done for him, and never forgets where he came from,” she said.

Her initial trip has left Holland, a social services specialist, with a desire to return for a longer stretch. “I experienced more blessings and more healing being there than anything I gave,” she said.


Ed.: For more information about SOHI, visit www.springhope.org.


Published in The Montana Catholic Online, Volume 26, No. 11, November 19, 2010.