Formerly of Cameroon, the Achas are long-distance parents of sorts to some 150 children in their homeland. Once as destitute as the children he now helps, Dr. Acha just finished medical school while Mrs. Acha is a nurse in Temple.
Though not many medical students and newlyweds are busy about the business of running orphanages in foreign countries, the Achas have more on their minds than setting up housekeeping. They’ve created a home for 21 homeless boys and girls while helping nearly 130 others with school tuition and basic needs through their non-profit ministry, Shaping Destiny.
“We see ourselves as their workers,” said Mrs. Acha, 24, a nurse at Scott & White Memorial Hospital. “We work for them.”
While Shaping Destiny’s home is a refuge for desperate children, its cramped rental space houses 11 boys and 10 girls in one room with as many as four children to a bed. Two full-time staff members also live on site.
It’s simply not enough space to offer children privacy and maintain good hygiene, said Acha, 32. During the next few weeks, the busy couple is hoping to raise $150,000 to build an orphanage. About $33,000 is pledged toward the mission, including the couple’s commitment to give $10,000 from their own salaries next year.
“For the orphan and the widow, God is the only person they have,” said Acha, who founded Shaping Destiny in 2005 and is its volunteer director. “If they pray, God listens for sure. God has put us here to represent them.”
It’s a responsibility few newlyweds would assume, however Acha said their backgrounds and medical training put them in a unique position to respond to the need. A recent graduate of Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine, Acha plans to spend three years of residency in Waco before devoting his medical career to helping orphans and widows in developing countries, he said.
“When I came here in 2002, I became a Christian and saw my calling, which was to go back and serve orphans who were suffering like I was,” said Acha, who will be moving with his wife to Waco this summer. “I decided to pursue medical school to be able to serve orphans and be a doctor for them anywhere in the world.”
He said he was inspired by the Bible, particularly what he read in James 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
“A lot of people do the second part but don’t really do the first part,” he said. “We go to church, we worship, we pray and we try not to sin, but we don’t do the first part of what God prescribes as pure religion, which is to take care of orphans and widows in their distress.”
Together, the Achas hope to take care of orphans well, in fact, even desiring to give them the same advantages they hope to provide their own children. In addition to appropriate sleeping quarters, they would like the building to house a sanctuary, medical clinic and library with computer lab, he said.
“My goal is not to build anything I wouldn’t want my child to live in,” Acha said, adding that the orphans’ home is in Batibo in the Northwest Province. “When we visit Cameroon we will probably live with the orphans when we are there.
“If we want to be the image of God on earth, we cannot afford to say that it’s OK for an orphan to live in a cage while I live in a nice house. God’s resources are not limited.”
Good facilities will help equip children to compete for jobs with students who come from more fortunate backgrounds, he added. Shaping Destiny provides orphans with room and board, as well as school tuition, medical care, spiritual training and opportunities for volunteer work. Students with parents who lack food or tuition money, for example, might not live on campus but can still qualify for help.
“Our goal is to make them independent,” Acha said. “We don’t want them to go back to the streets after going to school. We want them to be able to get jobs.”
Unlike in the United States, there is not public education in Cameroon, he said. School fees, uniform costs and books must be paid by each family or children cannot attend school. For poor households, the meager annual fee is nearly impossible to scrape together, he said.
“For most people living in the U.S., $5 is not a problem,” he said. “But if you’re there, it is a big problem.”
He speaks from experience. One of six children, Acha had to quit school twice when his widowed mother couldn’t afford a tuition fee of $4 per child. A former French teacher took pity on the bright student and invited him to live with his family.
“He saw I was interested in learning,” Acha said. “I was able to finish high school and was the best student in the region.” He was accepted into Texas Southern University, although funding fell through after he arrived in America. He enrolled in a Houston community college, maintained flawless grades and later was offered a full scholarship to Rice University.
In Houston, he also met his Cameroonian bride while rooming with one of her male relatives in 2004. The couple that describes themselves as a village boy and a city girl married in August 2008.
“We had totally different lifestyles in Cameroon,” he said. “I didn’t even know the color purple when I got into medical school.”
Acha said he had to ask an instructor for help when he was asked to identify a purple pin during an anatomy test.
“Little things like that because of where you come from,” he said. “That’s why I think I have a great way of understanding what those kids are going through.”
While in medical school, Acha decided to help orphans using some of his student loan money. A pastor there identified three students who had lost both parents, honoring Acha’s stipulation that the students not be from the same family.
“I wanted to take one child from each family so I could spread the help,” explained Acha, who also feels a responsibility to help his mother and siblings regularly. “Like myself. I am here in the U.S. and now I can help my own family. Not everybody will be coming to the U.S., but even if I was in Cameroon, if I had a job I could help my mother and my siblings.”
He also started recruiting medical school classmates in his effort, showing them photos of orphans.
“Friends in class amazingly joined,” he said. “Almost the whole class loved the idea. We went from three children to 27 to 75 to 150 now.”
In 2006-2008, donations to Shaping Destiny were just under $25,000 each year, he said. The organization accepts gifts through its website at www.shapingdestiny.org. This summer, Acha hopes to hire an employee and establish a permanent office in Waco. Funds given to support orphans will not be used for administrative costs, however.
“Cameroon is home but there are children everywhere that need help,” Mrs. Acha said, adding that many orphans or widows were abandoned when loved ones died from AIDS-related infections. “As the Lord gives the ability, He doesn’t just take the strong. He equips the person He’s going to send. You have to have the heart and the willingness.”
The goal is to provide a more level playing field for the kids they serve, Acha said.
“We want them to have enough training and enough exposure to things that they’re not clueless,” he said. “So they know what purple is.”
