It all began in 1999, when Helms and her husband Worth joined a church mission trip to Africa. The couple has a grown son from Worth's previous marriage but prayed for children in theirs. At the Anglican-run Mustard Seed Babies' home in Hoima, Uganda, they met Oliva, age 7, whose family could no longer care for her. The Helmses tried for two years to adopt her, but they encountered numerous roadblocks and restrictions.

"We decided God was leading us to help her in Uganda," recalls Helms. So they committed to financing her education there.

In 2001, they met Tamasuza at a Pittsburgh party where the Ugandan native was performing African music and teaching Ugandan culture. Tamusuza had been in the United States working on her doctorate in ethnomusicology at the University of Pittsburgh.

The Helmses shared their dream with Tamusuza, who offered to become Oliva's legal guardian. In a special ceremony, Oliva became the U.S. couple's "spiritual daughter," says Helms, and they are raising Oliva alongside Tamusuza and her husband Justinian. The Helmses cover education costs for Oliva, now 15, and see her every year. They hope to finance her college education in the United States.

"Sylvia and I support each other," says Helms, a member of Church of the Ascension, Pittsburgh. "God has used this 'slow growth' ministry to help me become more sensitive to another culture."

Their parenting partnership has spawned the Oliva Kinship Program, which brings together Ugandan families who have taken in orphaned children with Americans who offer financial support for education needs. According to the program's brochure, the endeavor differs from other child sponsorship programs by enabling orphaned children to remain in extended families' homes.

"The approach is [w]holistic in that it focuses on nurturing the mind, body, spirit and soul of the sponsored child," states a brochure with Oliva's beaming face on the front.

The program provides school fees, supplies, uniforms and Bibles; basic medical expenses, professional counseling and social work visits; mentoring help for the child from adult orphaned children; and initial placement costs, including a mattress, bedding, play clothes and shoes.

A second organization
Tamusuza comes to the project with significant knowledge and experience. Ten years ago, she started Love and Care Family International, a Christian 501(c)3 organization through which mothers care for their own and orphaned children at the Miriam Duggan Home in Uganda. She conducts workshops worldwide on ethnomusicology to raise money for the organization.

Helms, who is studying for a master's degree in mission and evangelism at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Pennsylvania, says she believes it was not by chance that she and Tamusuza met.

"I was mad at God that I didn't have children," she recalls. Through Oliva and Sylvia, she says, "I realized I wanted to help people with their needs, not mine. Oliva is not mine to have as my own. When I had to give her back for Sylvia to raise ... out of that has come a fabulous model, the Kinship Program."

Helms says her experience has taught her much about how cultures treat orphans. In a land where kinship and family ties are essential, Uganda's 2 million orphans face numerous obstacles. Most lost parents through death from AIDS, and relatives often lack resources to take in other children. The Kinship Program enables children to stay with their extended families and helps secure their "legal future, so they can become contributing adults," says Helms.

"If they don't have family or education, they become outcasts," she says. "Orphanages in Uganda are called 'babies' homes' because the word for orphan is the same as [for] garbage."

Helms and Tamusuza have written and perform a musical drama about their co-parenting ministry, Set Free to Serve. They have performed it in Africa and the United States.

Still in its pilot phase, the program now finances four children. Staffing and organization are taking place in the United States and Uganda. American sponsors are asked to pledge $30 per month. Once forms are received, a representative contacts sponsors about available children.

Anyone interested in sponsoring a child can contact Helms at 724-940-2322 or jhelms1220@hotmail.com or write to the Oliva Kinship Program, 2628 Woodmont Lane, Wexford, PA 15090.