bonyos-kenya-mission-149507

World Peace in a Box

Mon, 05 May 2025 19:46:52 GMT

by Heidi 'Achieng' Weisel

Bonyo asked me how volunteering for Bonyo’s Kenya Mission has changed my life.

This is the story of my life’s path to BKM.

When I was a little girl, I was obsessed with Africa in general and I knew that one day Africa it would play a large part in my life. For my tenth birthday, I prayed to God that instead of getting gifts for my birthday, I just wanted World Peace. I went to bed the night before my birthday with full faith that God would make my prayer come true the next day. How could he not answer such a birthday prayer? The next morning I arose and I ran straight to the kitchen to grab the newspaper, just knowing that World Peace would be on the front page! Nevertheless, it was not! I knew that it had to be so, because it was my birthday and because God would not let me down on my birthday! I went to my bedroom to turn on the radio and found the news channel, but they were not talking about the Amazing Miracle of Overnight World Peace either! How strange I thought it was that a miracle had occurred, yet nobody was talking about it!

I then realized that perhaps God was keeping it as a surprise for later in the day because my mom was throwing a party for me. I waited as patiently as a ten-year-old can for a gift so extravagant. The guests came and we had cake and they sang happy birthday to me, then it was finally time to open gifts – I was so excited to see how God was going to reveal World Peace to my entire family for my birthday!

As I completed opening gifts (which I had told God I would forego in trade for World Peace), I was getting more and more nervous. By the end of the party, what do you think was the most memorable thing I received? I got a stinking Barbie Doll, the exact polar-opposite of World Peace to my ten-year-old mind! No one could possibly understand why I was not happy and although I tried my best to be grateful and trusting that God had a better plan than the one I had come up with for my birthday, I had a difficult time dealing with the materialistic and selfish. behavior of my co-humans for the next thirty years of my life.

Fast forward and I realize that I did not follow the path that led me to be a volunteer with the Peace Corps as I once dreamed of doing. Neither was I kidnapped by Gypsies any of the summers that they were rumored to have passed through my small farming town, much to my chagrin. Somehow, in spite of all of my opportunities to do otherwise, I ended up dropping out of college, getting married, having children, building a lovely house in the country, having a small farm upon which I rescued horses, raised beautiful children and was the neighborhood ‘Kool-Aid mom’ and a very active Boy Scout leader. I suppose in a small way I was able to justify that the children I raised and helped others to raise were a contribution toward a peaceful world, but they did not fulfill that need I still had that connected me to Africa.

Again though, the Universe had a larger knowledge of what my life should be like.

Once my kids were into their teen years, I worked full time at Summa, which is where I met Dr. Bonyo, and through that introduction, I learned how I was to become connected to Africa. I took my first trip in 2010 to the Mama Pilista Bonyo Memorial Health Centre with Dr. Bonyo and Dr. Greenberg, and my dreams of Africa were finally realized!

Since 2010, I have been on the Board of Directors of Bonyo’s Kenya Mission, have sponsored my ‘Kenyan Son’, have travel back to Kenya many more times. All of the twists and turns that my life has taken with job changes, divorce, new friends, meeting people along my way, and the connections that I have made to bring people together to promote Bonyo's Kenya Mission, have all been important checkpoints along the path of developing World Peace and realizing that World Peace happens one day at a time, one connection at a time, one smiling child at a time, one project at a time, and that World Peace does not come in a box with a bow on it for a ten-year-old's birthday, but that a child who plays with her Barbie is one small part of the World Peace puzzle.

That ten-year-old girl, if given the opportunity, can grow up to be part of a world that allows children in poverty to realize that people all over this planet are rooting for them, are helping them to have a better education, are working diligently for them to have a better life, are developing ways for them to have a life not plagued by disease and poverty, are striving to help them have a life where they have a school that has paper and pencils, to assure that they have potential to go to college to someday be able to help their own community – their own village, so that they too can be a checkpoint in the path to World Peace, helping to develop a better world for other future children.

My role in that realization has been the fulfillment of my ten-year-old dream of World Peace, visualized through volunteering with Bonyo’s Kenya Mission.

~ Heidi ‘Achieng’ Weisel*

* Achieng being my given name on the day I first arrived in Kenya, which means “one who is born when the sun shines”; this is fitting because I was born in February in Northeast Ohio at 2:30 in the afternoon. Oddly enough it was sunny and 45F that day. My best memories of my first trip were being ‘welcomed home’ as I arrived in Kenya, and the overcrowded bus rides where a multitude of people were crammed into a seat built for two and everyone was loving and kind and laughing and nobody minded that everyone was touching up-against each other. It was such a diabolically different experience than one would ever have in America, and I loved every sweaty humanly smelly moment of it!

Marylyne's Story

Mon, 05 May 2025 19:46:50 GMT

My name is Marylyne Aluoch Onyango

I am a graduate of Maseno University class of 2015 with a Bachelors degree in Actuarial Science. I can proudly say that I am who I am today because of Bonyo’s Kenya Mission (BKM).

I lost my dad and mum when I was still young and was left in the hands of my mum’s sister; Seraphine Odongo, who took me and the rest of my siblings as hers and did her best to educate all of us. On reaching Form 3 (grade 12), economic times became harder and paying for my boarding school fee was becoming harder and harder. I stayed home for the better part of the first semester of Form 3 and a part of me was afraid that I may have to drop out of school. I could not continue at Ahero Girls High School until my Term 1 fees were cleared.

It is around this time that Bonyo’s Kenya Mission came to my rescue. The administrator, Mr. Phillip K’ Osambo found me and enrolled me into the program. It is from then that I never lacked school fees and rejoined school in Term 2. BKM provided for my fees and visited me in school from time to time. It made me feel loved and really cared for.

On completion of high school, I was happy to be called to Maseno University, a public university in Kisumu East Constituency, to pursue Actuarial Science. My entire college fee was cleared by BKM. I am forever grateful to BKM and Dr. Bonyo for the support. I dedicated my school breaks and volunteered at the clinic during medical camps in July and December to help with translation. I also worked with George Otieno and other staff in managing the Child Sponsorship program, running the hospital, and other activities such as orphan day celebrations, etc.

Today, I am happy that I am working at the hospital in Wan'gaya village; Kisumu, Kenya full time, as I witness most of the kids who were stuck like me get a chance to attend school to completion.

Mission Trip July 2023

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 22:12:46 GMT

Thoughts & Reflections

"I am grateful for the experiences and memories I am taking away from serving at the Bonyo clinic. As a second year medical student with much schooling still ahead, it’s hard not to lose yourself to imposter syndrome by thinking you only will be useful when you are an attending physician. But, this experience proved me wrong. Being a clinician to these strong Kenyan individuals, they instilled a confidence in myself that I will take with me forever. They helped me realize that it’s not the big discoveries or tasks in medicine that help shape lives, it’s the little things that make it worth it - an ankle injection that brings an individual back to their youthful days, eye glasses to help them see more clearly, or just offering a hand beside a fearful patient admitted to an overnight stay at the clinic. It brought me back to the basics and showed me how powerful they are in developing a foundation as a doctor. Through using his own drive, Dr. Bonyo has created a legacy that will continue to shape future physicians and I am forever thankful to be a part of it.”

- Himani, KCU Class of 2026

“Volunteering at the Mama Pilista clinic was an eye-opening experience into the differences of Kenyan health care and the practice of tropical medicine. In the short time of being there, I quickly learned how to work as part of a medical team, adapted to taking a patient's history with a translator's help, and gained more confidence in performing exams and diagnosing patients. I also learned and saw so much more about various skin findings on darker skin tones than I had or would ever learn in my current medical curriculum. Through both the patients and the translators, I gained more insight and knowledge into the beautiful Kenyan culture and the language of the Nuo people. Aside from experiencing the culture, the best part of this experience was seeing the grateful smiles of the patients and knowing that it was caused by our hard efforts.”

- Vivian, KCU-Joplin, Class of 2025

“This Kenya trip has exceeded all of my expectations in the best way possible. It was a wonderful privilege to be able to serve the people of Kenya and the people from your home village. I have learned a great deal working at the clinic with patients from the rural parts of Kisumu, while also receiving invaluable direct mentorship from all of the attendings, which I am sure will prove to be extremely useful during my 3rd and 4th year rotations. Overall, this trip has left a great impression on me and motivates me to continue embarking on more medical outreach missions in the future in countries that need help. Thank you for allowing us to be part of this experience in taking care of the people of your village and showing us all the beautiful things Kenya has to offer.”

- Gordon, KCU, Class of 2026

“After surviving the first year of medical school, I wanted an experience to remind me why I got into medicine. Bonyo’s Kenya Mission is truly everything that medicine is about - helping people no matter their circumstances and meeting them where they are. It was a true honor to be a volunteer with Bonyo and his team, and I was able to learn skills for clinical rotation early on. The trip was beautiful, inspiring, and educational.”

- Heleena

“My goal with global health trips is to go beyond the pathology of the health problems we encounter, and try to understand how people make do in their existing health systems. Working with Bonyo’s Kenya Mission opened my eyes to the resilience of the Kenyan people. Everywhere we went, people were working hard, trying to make an honest living and provide for their families. It was this hard-working spirit that motivated me in my work at the clinic and made the care we provided all the more meaningful. Rather than installing a temporary patch for their problems, we inserted ourselves into the existing grassroots vision of the clinic and built lasting relationships within a sustainable health system. I will absolutely return to Kenya in the near future to expound on these relationships and build new ones.“

- Rajbir

“I was inspired by the love, community, and culture. My experience was it was an honor to go and serve and bond with the community. I have developed more as a person and discovered more about my purpose here on the earth. From the babies to the oldest adults I have learned something valuable. My life has been impacted tremendously for the better, I have grown and I am not the same person who went on the mission. I am grateful to you Dr. Bonyo for allowing me to come alongside you and the mission team. It is because of God I had this awesome opportunity. Keep doing this great work for God and the people of Kenya.”

- Michelle

“Amazing experience! I learned so much about tropical medicine and being able to diagnose patients with malaria. Unlike any other mission trips I have been on, this clinic allowed us to round on patients that were admitted on the previous days. Seeing the in-patients get progressively better was extremely rewarding.”

- Carmen

Mission Trip July 2022

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 19:41:07 GMT

Watch this video of the incredible experiences our volunteers had on the July, 2022 mission trip.