Mom opens home and heart to African children with medical needs

GALION - When Holly Christini welcomed Ainata into her home in March, the child spoke no English. She didn't know what a toilet or a refrigerator was. She'd never been to school. 

Christini helped the 7-year-old make the major adjustment from a mud hut in Burkina Faso to a house in Galion, Ohio, where 43-year-old Christini lives with her husband and two daughters.

Every two weeks, Christini uses vacation time or trades shifts with other nurses at OhioHealth Shelby Hospital to fly to Iowa with Ainata for a series of surgeries and check-ups to correct the girl's club feet. 

Soon, Christini will help Ainata relearn how to walk, balancing on the soles rather than the tops of her feet for the first time. 

And then this fall, after all they've been through together, there will come a day when Christini will have to give Ainata up and send her back home to her West African village. 

"I think it's the most joyous, most painful thing you can experience, which is to fall in love and then know that..." Christini trails off as she begins to cry and then picks up after regaining composure, "...that she'll go home. I won't have her always."

This is the fifth time Christini has been a host mom for African children coming to America through a Christian non-profit organization called Children's Medical Missions West. The kids stay with Christini while they receive medical care they could not have gotten at home. 

The kids are typically strong-willed, having learned to survive in difficult circumstances despite physical deformities such as a cleft palate or clubfoot. They're also homesick and afraid.

It's not easy, Christini says, but it is richly rewarding to know she's having a profound impact on kids like Ainata.

"This changes their lives forever. Just by getting this treatment, she'll have a normal life. She can go to school. She can be productive. She can get married," Christini said. 

Without the surgery, Ainata likely would never go to school or be able to help support her family. She might be ostracized by her community, and she might be a beggar all her life. 

In 2013, after a mission trip to Haiti, Christini decided to try being a host mom. It was a big commitment, and she was terrified, but she figured she could do anything once. 

"I've been a nurse for 19 years now, and at that time I knew I could help kids with medical needs," Christini said. "I thought God was calling me to give it a try, but I thought, 'Well, I work full time, I have two children of my own.' I think I said for about seven years, 'I just don't have time.'"

Since that first time, Christini and her family have embraced four more kids from Children's Medical Missions West. She considers each one part of the family.

She also started her own non-profit, "Into the Heart, Into the Home," so she could follow up with the kids after they return home and also help meet medical needs of other children. 

Christini visits the kids' families as the children get reacclimated in Africa, providing them with malaria nets, medications and solar-powered Bibles that read to the kids in their native languages.

She also uses the money to help pay for the kids' education. If Ainata's father agrees, Christini has an American sponsor lined up to pay for Ainata to attend a private Christian school. 

"I feel like if we educate these children, they can educate their families," Christini said. 

Christini said she couldn't do the work she does without a whole network of people who give of their time and resources to help children in need. 

One of those people is Dr. Jose Morcuende from the University of Iowa, who agreed to do the surgery through the Ponseti International Association.

Another is Gary Stull of Covington, Ohio, who has donated his time and the use of his plane to take Christini and Ainata to several of their appointments.

When all is said and done, Stull will have taken the pair to Iowa six times, sometimes even staying overnight there to bring them back. Other times, other pilots make the return flights. 

Stull, a volunteer with LifeLine Pilots, has been taking people to medical appointments through LifeLine for 10 years. 

"It just feels worthwhile and good... She has a God-given potential, just like I do, and we'd like to help her realize that," Stull said of Ainata.

When Ainata and Christini return to Ohio Thursday, the energetic 7-year-old will be unable to walk for about four weeks, and then her therapy begins. When she recovers, she will go back to Burkina Faso, likely next January.

After that, Christini said her family will take a break. They've hosted five kids in five years, and Christini admits it hasn't been easy. 

But she wouldn't trade the experience for the world. 

"A lot of people look at it and go, 'Well, there's just too many kids to help.' But if you think about it just one at a time, if we all would reach out and help someone else, then the world would be a better place," Christini said. 

cmcnaull@mansfieldnewsjournal.com

419-521-7220

Twitter: @courtneymcnaull