Photo courtesy of Gail Mitchell

St. Theresa, Kihei, parishioner Gail Mitchell shares a moment with Elizabeth “Mummy” Mendies, the heart of the Mendies Haven Home, an orphanage in Kathmandu, Nepal, that she will visit next month with fellow parishioner Stephanie Franco.

St. Theresa parishioners Gail Mitchell and Stephanie Franco will be flying next month to Nepal and India to bring aloha to orphans living half a world away.

Most of their nearly four-week trip will be spent working with children at the Mendies Haven Home, an orphanage in Kathmandu, Nepal, where Mitchell has volunteered more than eight times before.

“The children are the most precious children I have ever known,” Mitchell said. “It has been priceless to visit them year after year and to see how they have grown up to become computer experts, pastors, teachers, secretaries and chefs.”

Making her first trip to Asia, Franco, the wife of St. Theresa deacon Stan Franco, said she expects to work and “help out in whatever way we can.”

“I expect to clean, scrub, do homework with the children, spend time reading stories, cooking, yard service and even painting if that is what is needed.”

She said she most looks forward to meeting the children.

The volunteer work by Mitchell and Franco will be especially helpful as the heart of the home for children in Nepal, 90-year-old Elizabeth “Mummy” Mendies, has been ill. Mitchell and Franco also will be volunteering for several days in Mother Teresa’s Home for the Elderly in Kathmandu.

Leaving Maui on March 31, they will take approximately three days to make their way (via Taipei and New Delhi, India) to the Mendies home for children in Nepal. Then, in mid-April, they’ll travel to Delhi to work at Mother Teresa’s Baby Orphanage. They’ll also work with elderly and young people as well as gypsies in the Tibetan communities of Rajpur and Dehradun.

Mitchell and Franco are paying their own travel costs. As part of a “gift of aloha” from St. Theresa Parish in Kihei, members of the community are gathering items to donate to the children.

“We have been asked to bring warm items for the children: socks, mittens, underwear,” Franco said.

Franco and Mitchell plan to shop for the items a few days before the trip.

“Pray that we find the best bargains in town and that we can keep our luggage under the weight allowed by the airlines,” Franco said.

Mitchell had kept her volunteer work a private matter and never before sought donations to bring basic items needed by the orphans. But she has agreed to make the mission to Asia a charitable project by the Kihei parish as a whole.

“At first I was hesitant to do this, but now I am fully excited because so many people have commented that they were so very blessed to be part of this by helping the children,” she said.

During her first trip to Asia, Franco said she expects to see “beautiful Himalayan Mountains; people who live with less than we Americans are accustomed to; children like children here — filled with dreams and wanting the simple things in life (hugs, smiles, songs, play time and just being present to them).”

Mitchell became interested in traveling to Nepal and India after visiting the region for the first time nearly 20 years ago with her husband and three children.

“Our family ‘fell in love’ with the people of Nepal,” she said.

The Mendies Haven Home began as a haven for street children in Kathmandu began by Elizabeth McDonald, originally of Canada, and her husband, Thomas Mendies of India.

They moved into the Kingdom of Nepal at the invitation of the king and queen there and opened the first hotel in Nepal.

“Immediately, the street children of Kathmandu began going to the back door of the hotel to beg for food,” Mitchell said. “The hotel eventually failed due to the war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir and Bangladesh. Elizabeth and Tom began adopting these street children until finally the government forbade them to adopt any more of the children, but the government (eventually) agreed to allow them to begin a home for the street children.”

“Fifty years later, today the Mendies Haven Home has given hope for the hopeless street children of Kathmandu,” she said.