Spreading love, helping children around the world
Calgary woman humbled by warm welcome
If pre-flight last-minute shopping is included, it was a 44-hour commute for 71-year-old Cynthia Redfern.
On Sunday, Redfern came back from Uganda. It was her third twoweek World Vision Destination Life Change trip overseas to visit some of her sponsored children and the communities in which these children live.
Mother of five, grandmother of six and World Vision sponsor of eight, and counting, children, Redfern hopes to go overseas again soon.
“I had cortisone shots in both knees before I left,” Redfern said.
Redfern was in Mongolia in 2009 and in Bangladesh in 2010, each two- week trip at her own expense but guided on site by World Vision volunteers and translators.
This trip was to the village of Soroti, Uganda.
Mormon Bishop Geoff Grunewald said Redfern is the oldest person he’s heard of going on such trips.
“She’s tough and very kind. We’re very proud of her.”
Redfern’s son Toby says his mother was equipped with Internet to provide updates during the trip to Uganda. Yet he was without news of his mother until the day before she was due to return to Calgary.
“We were on this side of the pond, worrying,” Toby Redfern said.
“Yet, ever since father passed away in 2007, World Vision has been part of my mother’s life. We don’t discourage her from going.”
On Redfern’s trip to Mongolia, wide open spaces hid the poverty of the nomadic tribes.
In Bangladesh, however, “the seething mass of humanity” in the village of Chittagong made poverty much more obvious.
At the village’s Hindu temple, Redfern met a cleaning lady with whom there was “an instant connection, across totally different cultures.”
The Hindu lady kissed Redfern three times on the cheeks, as French people are known to do.
Then, the Hindu lady dropped on her knees, kissed Redfern’s feet and said Hare Krishna three times.
“That was the most humbling experience of my life,” Redfern said.
“I should have been the one to kiss her feet.”
In Uganda, usually ragged children turn out in their best borrowed clothes when World Vision guests arrive to their village.
That’s where Redfern was offered the gift of a live chicken from villagers for whom chicken is a rarity.
Redfern was to receive three such offers during her visit.
“The chicken already had its feet tied, ready to go,” Redfern said.
“I gave it back and said, through the translator, ‘the chicken is just for a short while, but the gift of love you gave me is forever.’ ”