Issue date: 2/27/08 Section: News

Media Credit: COURTESY PHOTO A member of the African Children's Choir sings in a performance. The choir works to raise money and awareness to help educated African children living in poverty. [Click to enlarge]

Anthony Were has a case of the flu, but his spirits are high, his voice pleasant and calming. He is resting at his home in Nairobi, Kenya, just past 7 p.m. his time. He hasn't had dinner, but insists on the phone he is content.

He talks in a soft voice, but he frequently laughs; the genuine, infectious laugh of a child. It's easy to forget that he is thousands of miles away, tucked into his cozy couch in his surely quaint home, amidst a country experiencing such turmoil. You can't hear it in his voice, picture it in your mind, or begin to imagine the political tension occurring in the place he calls home.

"I was born in Kenya," said Were, a radio journalist. "I hope to live and die here."

He shares stories of Nairobi; stories that create the sense of a carefree community that somehow seems so similar to life in Texas. And he speaks of the African Children's Choir and the tremendous role it has played in his life.

He tells about his three closest friends, his new job, his mother, his childhood. We talk about that notorious, golden arches seen around the world, McDonalds.

And then he talks about a church that was recently burned because of political unrest in Kenya. The church sat just outside the slums where Were lived as a child.

In 1990, the church as a physical entity and a place of God, symbolized the start of a new life to Were and other high-spirited children more than ever before.

Were was 8 years old then. He and many other children anxiously gathered inside the church awaiting to audition for a children's choir. Word of the auditions had spread by way of mouth.

"My mum heard about it from a missionary," Were said.

It was a choir that promised so much more than an opportunity to sing.

Were was chosen to become a member, along with other children who desperately needed help. Most were living in extreme poverty and had lost one or both parents to disease.

Continued...

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