Sue van Schreven - Mother to many

She’s mother to many - ‘Mother Teresa’ to abandoned orphans across the world, and a whole generation later the immense satisfaction Sue van Schreven receives from making such a difference in these young lives keeps driving her to do more.

Her charity, Orphans Aid International, celebrates 20 years this month (July) and is now working in, or helping orphans from, eight countries, from Eastern Europe to India, Africa and the Middle East.

It all started in 2001 – Sue’s first trip to search for orphaned children. She’d gone to Romania with her church. A seed had been planted many years earlier when at nine her mother gave her a book about a woman who cared for abandoned children. “From then on I always said I was going to do that,” she says.

The daughter of sharemilkers, raised near Auckland, then Rotorua, Sue struggled with shyness, working in a bank until doors opened in youth work while she attended Bible College in Hamilton at 23. One of the first female leaders, she quickly grew in confidence and found her niche. However, life took a dramatic turn for the worse when Sue’s younger brother took his own life at 23, leaving her utterly devastated.

“I quit my youth worker job thinking I’d failed him. That was a real turning point with a lot of soul searching, but I really wanted to make my life count and I’d always felt I needed to care for children who have nobody.”

Moving to Invercargill she met husband of 28 years Carl, her neighbour and a patient man, blissfully unaware what he was getting himself into. “Carl had a desire to save bears, me kids,” she laughs. While pregnant with their second son Sue felt stirred to “find these children”. She returned to Romania with Carl, their baby and toddler, where they opened their first orphanage, Casa Kiwi, with four Romanian kids on 13 July 2004.

“I naively thought, ‘Romania has Weetbix and toothbrushes. We can look after these kids’,” she says. “I thought everyone would help as they said they would, but it was very stressful finding the money. Somehow we always did and there have been many, many amazing miracles as to how along the way.” A Vodafone grant was a huge boost the year Orphans Aid started.

Since then, Orphans Aid has helped around 60,000 children in 12 countries, saving many from certain death due to neglect, abandonment and slavery. In 20 years, Casa Kiwi has been home to 160 children, 88 who’ve been adopted out, seven integrated with natural family, 155 families receiving counselling and adoption training and 210 receiving food and clothing.

There’s now more focus on stopping the abandonment but Orphans Aid is seeing a whole generation of children emerging from its homes, integrated into the world. Andrei, with them since three, so badly neglected that he couldn’t eat, talk or walk, now feels like Sue’s own son. “He was the same age as our Daniel when we opened there and living in a cot. He had nobody. There’s nothing you wouldn’t do for these kids that you wouldn’t do for your own,” Sue says.

Kids like Andrei have been her driving force. “I just want to alleviate all that suffering, and we keep seeing results. I’ve seen whole families turn around. Mums often abandon their kids so someone will feed them, and they won’t end up in slavery, beaten or begging. We give them the tools to see the whole family thriving.”

They have homes, feeding and adoption programmes, parental counselling across many countries, more recently assisting Ukrainian children fleeing to Romania and Bulgaria, and rescuing children from earthquake-ravaged Turkey. However, at times it’s been extremely tough finding funding, but Sue says her strong faith in God has always pulled her through in an organisation now relying on $2.5m fundraising each year, more than $1m of that going directly into aid. Significant extra funds support staff and projects.

“At one point, while it was all volunteer, I pulled up outside the Westpac Bank here with my CV to try and get a job. I started writing a ‘to do’ list outside and thought, ‘I haven’t got time for this, so I drove off. I just had to make it work as all those children were relying on me.”

Since then, she’s authored two books and starred in major documentaries.

For their 15th anniversary Sue and a team of fundraisers trained hard, climbing 6000m Mount Kilimanjaro, raising more than $40,000. This year they’re climbing to Mount Everest Base Camp (5364m) – a 135km, 14-day trek, as they need to raise $150,000. “That’s an important part of our budget as times are tough,” she says.

“Many, many times I’ve thought, ‘How the heck will this come together’ but it always does, even in these times with high cost of living pressures. I just know it will be okay and I will be able to feed those kids, I just know it. I’ve seen the breakthrough happen so many times.”

Orphans Aid International — the abandoned rescued since 2004
Today... over 150 million children suffer and struggle to survive with no mum or dad. Join our cause to love and care for orphaned children – one child at a time.
www.orphansaidinternational.org