By Bunmi Ishola
The Norman Transcript
February 16, 2007 01:11 am
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"I alone will do it."
This is what Adam Selmon told his mom Kathryn after she read him an article about Make A Difference Day in USA Weekend magazine.
Even though his mom offered to help him come up with ideas, Adam decided to make a difference he would play the drums.
He'd play his drums for Liberia.
That was in October.
Now, months later, Adam has been awarded $10,000, money he will donate to the Norman-based Shine Foundation, an organization created by his adopted siblings Zac and Shannon, in which the entire Selmon family participates.
Make a Difference Day is a national day of helping others, a celebration of neighbors helping neighbors.
For 15 years, USA Weekend magazine has encouraged everyone and anyone to participate in the annual event held on the forth Saturday of every October.
Paul Newman, who donates all after-tax profits from the sales of his products to various educational and charitable purposes, supports Make A Difference Day by donating $10,000 each to 10 selected projects.
This year, Adam, 12, was chosen as one of those 10. Of the 10 winners, Adam was one of the youngest, raising the least amount of money and doing the simplest of actions. But, his effort might have made the most difference.
He raised $207 by playing his drum in Andrews Park in Norman. Having just arrived in America a few months before, after Kathryn and Dewey Selmon adopted him, Adam knew exactly where he wanted the money to go -- to help the orphanage he left behind in Liberia.
"I was just really proud of him for having the guts to do it," Kathryn said.
As soon as she found out he had been chosen as one of the 10, Kathryn went to pick him up from school, taking him to get chicken fried rice as their celebration.
In April, USA Weekend and The Norman Transcript will sponsor a local awards ceremony where Adam will receive his award and $10,000 donation.
Rainbow Town
Until August 2006, Adam was raised by "Ma" Feeta Naimen in Gbarnga, Liberia, with about 85 other children. He was one of the many children who were forced to hide during Liberia's brutal civil war. Liberia's civil crisis killed a quarter of the population and displaced hundreds of thousands of survivors.
Ma Feeta, who had no children of her own, acted as a foster mother for each of the children, when a soldier asked her to take the children and hide them from oncoming rebels.
Over the years, several organizations helped Ma Feeta turn her act of courage and charity into an proper orphanage, building a dormitory and other facilities, which they call Rainbow Town. One of these organizations was Samaritan's Purse.
It was through Samaritan's Purse that the Selmons learned about Ma Feeta, and eventually about Adam.
Lauren Selmon began working with Samaritan's Purse, an international non-profit children's organization, during college. Through a Yahoo group, Lauren kept her family updated on her activities, sharing with them the stories of the people she encountered.
After graduating, Lauren spent a year in Liberia working full-time with Samaritan's Purse, working with Ma Feeta and falling in love with the children the Liberian gave her life to.
"We didn't know anything about Liberia until Lauren went there," Shannon said. "That was our first introduction to Liberia."
In 2004 the Selmon family adopted 6-year-old Christiana from Ma Feeta's orphanage. Even though the young girl had faced hunger, homelessness, loss and fear, she still had unwavering faith in God. Ma Feeta taught the children not only how to survive, but how to thrive with joy and thankfulness.
"Lauren and her just bonded and she called home and talked to our parents and said, 'We got to help this little girl,'" Shannon said.
Christiana, who is now 10, had hope that God would restore her ravaged nation and the valor and devotion that Christiana had, as well as the other children at Ma Feeta's orphanage, touched the Selmon family immensely.
It was the perseverance, patience, peace and thanksgiving which Ma Feeta shows and teaches her children that inspired Zac and Shannon Selmon were inspired to form the Shine Foundation.
And these same values, as well as hope for Liberia's future, is what inspired Adam to play his drum.
The Shine Foundation
With Zac acting as president, Shannon as director and Lauren as the field staff coordinator, the family began working toward aiding Liberia.
With the help of their parents, Kathryn and Dewey, and sister Megan, who sit on the foundation's board of directors, they were able to take a team of 14 to Gbargna, Liberia, where Rainbow Town is located in late May 2006.
They were able to take a dental team to provide free services to over 200 Liberians, many of whom had not seen a dentist since 1989; more than 50 pastors and church leaders studied servant-leadership under the teaching of their pastoral team; and maybe most importantly, they were able to build a school.
Working in conjunction with Samaritan's Purse and Touch The World Ministries, the two foundations that have been aiding Ma Feeta's orphanage since its beginnings, The Shine Foundation constructed a 3,500-square-foot school at the Rainbow Town Orphanage.
The school will serve not only Ma Feeta's children, but also those from nearby villages. Called Britt Academy, it was named in honor of 1st Lt. Benjamin Britt, Megan Selmon's fianc?, who died while fighting in Iraq on Dec. 22, 2005.
"To put it simply, The Shine Foundation is about just that... making a difference, believing that as we seek God's will, He will be our guide and our strength," Zac wrote on the Web site.
It was during this visit that the family met Adam, as well as Gabriella, 7, whom they later adopted in August of that year.
In Rainbow Town, Lauren said, Adam was a leader. He was one of the hunters who sought food for the 85 children, made the 45-minute walk to the market for vegetables, and during the daily prayer times at the orphanage, he played the drums.
She was touched that even though he was now in America, the family he left behind remained forefront in his mind.
"For sure, he is missed at Rainbow Town," she said. "So it really is special to see him miss them and help them. He has the ability to get caught up in whatever he wants to, but he still thinks of Liberia and his family there."
The $207 that Adam raised in October is going straight to Rainbow Town. The family said it was enough to pay for two desks, four benches and a gallon of glue for the Britt Academy.
"I think that such strength lies in the simple things of life," Lauren said. "The whole concept of playing a drum and singing doesn't seem like this totally complicated task, in fact it's real simple.... No, there is power in that ... it's a testimony, he really is making a difference now."
With the $10,000 Adam has now raised, The Shine Foundation will continue its projects, the first of which will be to "build Ma Feeta's house," Adam said. The woman lives in the dormitory with the children, and now The Shine Foundation and their partners hope to build her a separate place of her own.
"I've only been in contact with her for three weeks and she's more deserving than anyone I've come in contact with," Shannon said.
The money also will be used to support the Britt Academy, she said. There are still many things the children and teachers need and to rebuild a country, education is key. More than half of Liberian children do not attend school and the Selmon family hopes their effort will change that.
The money also will continue to sustain and maintain Rainbow Town, send short-term medical teams to rural areas of Liberia to provide free medical care, and to jump start EKIA (Enhancing Knowledge of Illiterate Adults), a program which will teach 500 adult Liberians to read and write.
"The only thing keeping us from implementing this project is funding," Shannon said.
Now they have it. But the Selmon family knows that the $10,000 will only be the beginning to help war-torn Liberia and its children, so similar to the three they have adopted. But just like the children of Rainbow Town, they have faith that God will work it out.
"We feel God will lead people to give," Shannon said. "And the funds we raise will match our project accordingly.
"We trust that if God is leading us, he'll provide the means for us to fulfill the mission."
The whole family is proud of what Adam took the initiative to do. They are working on recording a CD of Adam singing and drumming, hoping the idea that raised a little over $200 once on a park bench can help raise more to continue aiding Liberia.
As for Adam, he said he'll continue to play his drum "to help people at the place I was first."
For more information about The Shine Foundation, call 321-7446. To find out more or to make a tax-deductible donation, write to 2725 S. Berry Road, Norman, OK 73072.
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