INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — It’s not hard to make Gloria Akello smile. Just ask her about singing with the Imani Milele Children’s Choir, and watch the 15-year-old’s face light up and eyes twinkle.
“I love to sing with the whole of my heart, with all of my joy inside of me,” she says.
The 25-member choir, currently on a nine-month tour of the U.S., is the outreach arm of Imani Milele Children, a childcare program based in a section of Kampala, Uganda in East Africa.
The program, started by Pastor Ssemanda Mbuga Moses in 1989, provides for more than 3,000 of Uganda’s orphaned and vulnerable children. They are housed and educated at eight schools around the country.
Many of the children have life stories similar to Akello, who was taken in by Imani Milele Children at age nine.
“When I was really young, I lived with my Mom and Dad, and was very happy,” says Akello, who is the youngest of three children.
“But my Dad passed away when I was 3 years old and life changed at home. Me and my siblings stopped going to school because we could not afford to go,” she says, adding that her mother tried to provide for them but eventually got sick and died.
“I thought I would never, ever smile again in my life,” Akello says.
The children briefly lived with a neighbor before being taken in by the childcare program.
“This has truly been a blessing in my life,” says Akello, who dreams of becoming a chemist.
That blessing has been passed on to those lucky enough to see the children’s choir perform, says Jannet Perry, who is coordinating the choir’s “Rhythm of Hope” tour from her office at Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church in Sebastian.
The church is sponsoring the tour, with church members serving as host families for the children while they are in Indian River County. Choir members range in age from 10 to 19.
“You cannot deny the power of their voices, they truly sing and perform from the heart,” says Perry, who felt a divine calling to be the choir’s tour administrator after hearing Pastor Moses talk in September.
“Me and God are coordinating this,” she says of the tour, which kicked off when the children arrived from Uganda on March 14.
Their next stop is a public performance at the Gifford Youth Activity Center at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, April 6.
The performance will be punctuated with a cross-cultural collaboration with the Gifford Florida Youth Orchestra.
The choir will remain in Indian River through the end of April, with numerous performances sprinkled between Melbourne, Vero Beach and West Palm Beach, before moving on to other parts of Florida and then Georgia.
The choir will then head to other states before going back to Uganda on Dec. 27.
Pastor Moses says he will then lead another tour, this one starting in Oregon, at the beginning of next year.
“The reason why we tour so much is because the need is too great for getting support for the orphans,” he explains.
“All of our performances are free, so we depend on donations from generous people. Also, when we are touring, we meet people who are interested in building homes for the children and getting involved in other ways,” Moses adds.
Crossroads’ leader, Pastor Michael Lyle, says the cultural exchange is worth more than money can buy.
“These children are ambassadors. They are resilient and show that no matter what your past circumstances are, you can make a difference in your future,” Lyle says.
He adds that the children’s strong faith is very evident in everything they do.
“These kids are filled with the Spirit of God. They don’t just talk about it, they don’t just sing about it, they believe it!”
Choir member Eric Jjombwe, 16, is on his second trip to the U.S. with the choir but admits being just as excited as if it were his first time.
“I actually see myself as representing a lot of children in Uganda. There are plenty of us who have been orphaned or lost our fathers and need help. I hope that our performances create awareness and motivate people to help because I want to see other children succeed and have a good life,” he says.
He adds that it is great to see television and go to the beach, things he is not exposed to in his homeland. But admits choir members still have to do schoolwork during the daytime, if there are no performances scheduled.
“We do our schoolwork and then practice for two to three hours a day,” he says.
The practice paid off during a recent performance at the North Indian River County Library, where about 125 people gathered with great anticipation to watch the troupe of singers, dancers and percussionists share their music and their culture.
A joyful noise broke out as voices sang in perfect harmony to traditional African folk tunes, adapted hymns and spirituals. Costumes of oranges, yellows and browns bounced across the stage, animated by the energy and the talent of the children.
At one point, choir members abandoned the stage and danced through the audience.
After lifting up and inspiring their audience, the choir simmered down and two members of the group shared their tragic life stories.
They told how they came to be one of the children in the care of Pastor Moses after their young lives disintegrated.
The amazing grief of losing parents and living amidst poverty and disease was such a stark contrast to the lilting joy of the choir’s performance, but the purpose of their testimony was gratitude.
Instead of being bitter or resentful over what they had lost, the children expressed thankfulness over the new home they had found in the ministry and for being able to get an education.
Newton Payne of Vero Lake Estates came to the performance not out of curiosity, but out of nostalgia for the time that he and his wife had spent in Uganda building schools there with his church group.
The music and the smiling faces took him back.
He said he hoped the performances around Indian River County would help local residents empathize with the plight of the children and the life they live in Uganda under harsh conditions.
When asked what he appreciated most about the Imani Milele Children’s Choir, Payne said, “Just the energy and the enthusiasm that they have, you can really hear it in their music.”
For more information on the Imani Milele Children’s Choir, or to book a performance, contact Jannet Perry, tour administrator, at Crossroads Christian Fellowship, (772) 589-3185 or email booking@imanimilele.com.
You can also visit www.imanimilele.com for more information on the Imani Milele Children program.
