Children from Peru, India, Liberia and Uganda will soon arrive in Covington to bring a message of awareness of the 600 million others like them who are at-risk or have been orphaned around the world.

Don Windham, founder and president of International Children’s Network, said the Matsiko Orphans Choir will come first to Covington, its home-away-from-home, before embarking on a 10-month tour of the country.

“The goal was how can we get more Americans and people from the west to get to know them,” Windham said. “I thought to do a choir would be great. My goal was to have orphaned and at-risk kids from all over the world.”

International Children’s Network has its roots going back nearly 15 years in a youth group at Covington Christian Fellowship, which merged with Real Life Church in November.

Kevin Holland, who is involved with international mission work at the church, has known Windham for years and has traveled with him.

“Don really developed a passion for kids that had no future except to be exploited or live in poverty,” Holland said. “I just got hooked. It sure feels good to sponsor kids then raise people’s awareness so they will sponsor kids.”

During the past five years, Matsiko Orphans Choir has grown and changed, Windham said. It started with children from Uganda. Now ICN is in many countries across the globe. Children come from remote villages in the Andes Mountains in Peru, as well as Liberia and Delhi, India, to participate in the choir.

“They come together and their purpose is to represent orphaned and at-risk kids so people can get to know them, see their issues, and more importantly to find sponsors for these kids so they can go to school,” Windham said. “We started with one choir … to now a group of kids from all over the world with an understanding of the differences and maybe our own ignorance so we can better find sponsors for the children.”

As the children sing, starting with a concert in Covington in early February, taking their message across the United States from Washington state to Oregon to California to New Mexico and beyond, Windham hopes those who hear the choir will be inspired to sponsor children through ICN.

Sponsorship, which costs $35 a month, Windham said, helps a child go to school all the way through the university level.

“Some people say, ‘oh, it’s just a black hole, you’ll never meet that need,’” Holland said. “But, we’ve got to do something. By sponsoring a child for $35 a month I can change their destiny.”

And while bringing sponsors into the fold can change the lives of orphaned and at-risk children long term, the experience with the choir can change its members for good, too.

Windham explained the children are fast friends initially but at some point during the experience they get frustrated with one another, seeing the worst in one another without recognizing it in themselves.

After some time, though, the children will get over the conflicts arise and develop deep bonds with their peers who come from different cultures and religious backgrounds.

“What happens is there is a transformation,” Windham said. “They become loved. They start to see they have value and they go back with a real belief they can do something. They go back just different people. Then we get to witness it, our church. We get to see them from the beginning.”

Once all the children arrive in Covington, they will spend time with host families, studying and preparing for the tour. They will leave, Windham said, March 2 then return in November. By the time the choir returns from the tour, they will have worked through two levels of school, not to mention all that they learn through travel as well as living and performing with children from other parts of the world.

Without this opportunity and sponsorship, Windham said, children from Peru, for example, have little to look forward to in life.

“It’s indentured slavery,” Windham said. “They work on a farm. They get a place to sleep, it might be a shack, and they get food.”

It is a life of fear, which is something Windham hopes Matsiko Orphans Choir can help children escape, one concert and sponsor at a time.

“We can truly make a difference,” Windham said.

Reach Assistant Editor Kris Hill at khill@covingtonreporter.com or 425-432-1209 ext. 5054.