When Megan Lewin was ten years old, she and her family gathered around the dining room table, breaking down a huge bag of multivitamins and repacking them into baggies. The vitamins would go with her parents to Kenya, where they would regularly go to drill wells and bless families.
She hadn’t even been to Kenya yet, but soon her future would be irrevocably tied to the country and its people.
At ten years old, she visited for the first time and returned throughout her teenage years.
Then, in the summer of Megan’s first year in nursing school when she was eighteen years old, God started something new in her heart on one of her trips to northwestern Kenya. The oldest of six, she began noticing children her siblings’ ages with no one to take care of them. Though she wasn’t yet a mom, God was preparing in her the heart of a mother of not only her future children, but of a wider family of overlooked and rejected children.
When she returned to the United States, she started raising money for Kenyan orphans, asking people to forfeit eating out once a month or coffee twice a month. Turned out that asking a lot of people to give small amounts made a huge impact.
From the proceeds, the new Waweza Movement built the rescue center and began caring for vulnerable children. But then, as Megan puts it, when you start serving, a ladder effect occurs. She and her family had started helping at the bottom of the poverty ladder by providing clean water, and next, she was compelled to help orphans and vulnerable children. Then she realized that not all the kids were fully orphaned, so she began helping single parents who were struggling to provide for their kids. That then turned into trauma care and business training. And to better help ostracized kids with disabilities, they recently began a mobile medical program that provided home visits.
Now, with twelve Kenyan staff members and five medical staff, fifteen years in, it’s a thriving ministry, impacting not only individual lives but the trajectory of family lines.
Much like her own family line.
Megan knows with all her heart that the good being done in children’s and families’ lives will continue beyond her lifetime. When she recently went to Kenya with her mom and eight-year-old daughter Lucy, she got a glimpse of the generational impact of the work that began with her parents. As three generations stood around a well that had been completed thanks to her parents’ ministry,she took a moment to appreciate the plaque placed in memory of her dad, who passed away in 2018. His earthly work continues and is only gaining ground.
Then, as they returned home, Megan’s daughter confided that she wants to become a nurse too and go back to Kenya one day to help the kids with disabilities.
Even as the seeds of faithfulness and service help countless people in Kenya, they are also sprouting in the next generation. It’s a truly beautiful reminder of God’s heart for all people.
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