His name was Kevin. He was a three-foot tall, dark skinned, wide-eyed, soccer playing little boy. By the looks of him, you wouldn't know that he also had AIDS. His smile could light up any dark room and melt any heart that saw it.

I grew up in a very affluent, predominately white, town where it wasn't abnormal for a girl to get a brand new beamer for her 16^th birthday and where designer jeans were the "it" thing. Senior year, the questions wasn't, "Should I go to college?" instead the question was "Standford or USC?" While I wasn't the richest kid in town, I'll admit I still got almost everything I wanted. In reality I should have been content; I had the world at my fingertips. However, I still felt like something was missing. A church leader suggested that I go on a trip to Africa that summer. I had always been interested in traveling, but this trip wasn't going to be a vacation. It was a mission trip; two weeks in Kenya helping AIDS orphans. I had previously done some volunteer work but nothing like this. I was reluctant and scared but I decided to go.

I left for Nairobi in early August 2009 with an organization named Discover The World to visit eight different orphanages all housing orphaned children. I spent a week riding around on a bus, delivering supplies, and hanging out with children who had nothing. All of the people running these orphanages had amazing stories of how they rescued more than 100 children off of the crime-ridden streets and saved their lives. Hearing this made me realize how fortunate and to be honest, how stuck up I was. At home, I expected to get what I wanted. I had dinner waiting for me every night, a comfy bed to sleep in, blankets to keep me warm and a loving family who supported me, even when I made mistakes. And here these children were: unsure of their next meal, many sharing a twin sized bed, without blankets, and no parents to look after them. It was sad, heart breaking even, but ill admit I still had no desire to come home and change the way I lived. At this point in the trip I planned to go home and go on living my life exactly as I had before I left: stuck up and selfish.

Our first stop was Neema House. I don't know why but something about this orphanage felt different the second I stepped out of the van. It was a small, run-down house, surrounded by un-cut grass, rocks and dirt. We were greeted by a slender, African-American man with pearly white teeth, dressed in a bright red flannel shirt and his wife. They took us into their home and told us how they fell in love and decided to start an orphanage for AIDS/HIV infected children together. This orphanage was different though; these children were all under the age of five, most of them were babies.

            After a brief amount of time spent inside the house we all walked around to the back yard. It was a large grassy area with a few trees and a small building off in the distance. They told us that the building in the distance was actually the nursery, where they kept all of the children and babies. We walked over to it. Each child I met was more eager and excited to play than the last. I was beginning to see why I came on this trip.

            My friend and I grabbed a few kids and went over to the play set to push them on the swing. We had learned earlier that a local four year old in the community had gotten this brand new play place for Christmas but told his parents he wanted to donate it to Neema House. This touching story was just one of the many that I heard that day.

            While I was pushing children on the swing, I saw a little boy playing soccer by himself in the corner. I quickly went over to play with him. He was so ecstatic to be getting attention and to have someone to play with that we played soccer, just the two of us, for twenty minutes without saying a word to each other. In those twenty minutes I absolutely fell in love with this little boy.

            I spent the entire day hanging out with him, and only him. I found out that his name was Kevin; he was three years old, infected with HIV/AIDS and had a potbelly due to malnutrition. When he was born, his mom decided that she didn't want him, most likely she was unable to take care of him, and left him on the doorstep of Neema house. He has been living there ever since. Even in Neema house, he wakes up each day, unsure of his next meal, surrounded by other HIV/AIDS infected children. He shares a bed with at least one, sometimes more, other kids. He constantly suffers from a cold due to the lack of sanitation, health care and supplies that Neema House has.

After spending most of the afternoon together and getting better acquainted, he asked to try on my sunglasses.

Casey and Kevin

"Miwani" He said.

As soon as I got home I put my affluent surroundings to good use. The following school year I took my annual trip to Tutwiler, Mississippi to build a house for Habitat for Humanity in one of the poorest counties in the country. But this time was different than any of the previous trips. Before the trip, I organized a fundraiser to get school and sanitary supplies for the children there. I also donated around $1,000 to Discover The World that I had originally raised to use for the trip. I hope to travel to different areas of the world doing the same work that I did in Kenya as a career and maybe even adopt a child from there.

            Kevin inspired me to be somebody else. This three-foot tall, dark skinned, wide-eyed, soccer playing little boy, who I could barely even communicate with, made more of an impression on me than anyone in my town of 25,000 people had. To me, the sunglasses he tried on that day were just some cheap, $5 sunglasses he wore for a few hours. But to him, they were a luxury; he didn't have any of those. My sunglasses made his day and in return his smile changed my life.

-Casey