A Grand Gathering of Granny’s House Moms, Grandmas, Aunties!!

This year’s Moms’ Banquet theme, “JOY! It’s the Best Makeup,” made for a catchy t-shirt logo AND an incredible message from our guest speaker, Remi Onayemi, a member of the KAA staff.


Remi encouraged Granny’s House moms, grandmas, aunties, and other special guests to let God’s Word and a relationship with Him, rather than peer pressure and media images, form the template for your self-esteem. After hearing her message, one excited mom said, “I wish she would have talked longer… her message helped me so much!”




This year's Moms Banquet was, again, held at the University of Missouri’s Black Culture Center and, whether feasting on the catered bar-b-que meal and the ice cream sundae bar, or listening to testimonies of God’s faithfulness, everyone experienced the goodness of God – 3D!

This fall at Granny’s House, we have had an incredible number of groups doing service projects for us! This has been such an great blessing for the 60-70 children attending Granny’s House every day! Many groups come in the afternoon and set up a craft or special project for the children while other groups have brought children to different places, like the Hearnes Center or to the Mizzou Rec Center for a fun fieldtrip! The children have absolutely loved these outings and the volunteers have been so much fun.

Greek 12:20 set up a great event with Mizzou Volleyball. We had fun activities before the game and then all sat together to watch the Mizzou women’s volleyball team beat Baylor.

The Diverse Student’s Association came the week before Halloween and did some great crafts with the children! The children had such a wonderful time and this group came up with some really creative craft ideas!

The following groups all came from the Trulaske College of Business at Mizzou:

--The first group gathered enough Halloween costumes for all of the children, and then some! The children had such a wonderful time picking out halloween costumes and we had so many children parents thank us for these great costumes!

--The second group decided to sell t-shirts on the Mizzou campus to raise money for Granny’s House. This was a fun and creative way for them to raise money for Granny’s House. The t-shirts are black with gold writing. They are only 7$! To order a t-shirt, please e-mail pam@grannyshouse.org

--Group number three took us to the Mizzou Rec Center! We had such a fun Saturday morning with this group! They arranged for Granny’s House children to use two basketball courts at the Mizzou Rec Center! They also provided snacks and drinks for the children. This was such a fun way to expose the children to the University and all it has to offer! They also raised money to contribute to the Granny’s House christmas store!

--The final group from the College of Business is organizing a outdoor toy and ball drive for us! This is such a great need at Granny’s House, since we go through outdoor toys so quickly. These students are exchanging payment for their services to the members of the faculty of the College of Business. These services range from organizing, babysitting, to cleaning. Their goal is to raise $500.00 and they are well on their way to that goal!

Eta Sigma Delta is a honors society from Hotel and Restaurant Management at Mizzou. This wonderful organization brought us an entire meal of food, along with creative turkey crafts for the children to make. They also brought Truman the Tiger with them! This was such an incredibly fun day for the kids.

A HUGE thank you to all of these groups! these have been such a great group of students, and everyone was such a pleasure to work with! THANK YOU!

--mary kate

Health and Safety Week

This is the second semester we’ve had senior nursing student interns placed at Granny’s House, and you’re probably wondering, “Why in the world would you need nurses at Granny’s House?”

To be honest, I actually asked myself that same question when their supervising professor at the University of Missouri’s Sinclair School of Nursing first approached us with the idea of placing senior students at Granny’s House for a semester. Serving at Granny’s House, she believes, will give the students invaluable experience in working with “vulnerable populations” – giving them a 3-D, close up view of what they learn in their Community Health class.

Jessica Garcia Oyervides and Deidre Brookins have been a tremendous asset to Granny’s House. We believe the Nursing School, again, sent us the “cream” of the cream of the crop students!!

Their internship began with several weeks of just hanging out with the kids, participating in a variety of groups and activities as a means of getting to know the kids and assess how to best address the health needs of their families, and the community.

The fruit of their season of full immersion into Granny’s House was the development of “PASSPORT to Health and Safety” - a full week of demonstrations and hands-on activities to teach the kids the basics of keeping safe and living a healthy lifestyle.

The kids learned everything from personal hygiene and “When to Go to the Doctor,” to how to interact with the police, and what to do with a burns and broken bones. The kids especially loved visiting with “Organella,” a special teaching doll whose zippered compartments allow the kids to see her various organs and body systems…

Jessica and Deidre not only planned the week’s activities, they also recruited volunteers, collected supplies, and raised the funds to purchase the first aid and hygiene kits that every family at Granny’s House received. We cannot thank Jessica, Deidre, and the many community sponsors enough for such a fun, informative week at the Granny’s House! We all learned a lot.

PEOPLE STORIES – Part 3, John

No one would ever describe John as subtle. Not by his raucous laughter, and certainly not by the way he bounds up the stairs at Granny’s House every day. Even when he’s trying to be quite, our African friend from Burundi is loud.

As is typical, I heard him long before I saw his bright-eyed face appearing at the office door. Moments later, he walked in and noisily plopped into a chair beside Crystal, our new mom-volunteer who had just signed in to begin the day’s volunteer duties.

“Granny Pam!” he nearly shouted. “I need to know about God…” he said. “I got this Bible, but I need to know God.” John is Ira’s friend and, before, the two of them enjoyed making mischief together. But Ira’s dramatic transformation at KAA had peaked John’s interest in God.

It’s not very often that someone makes that kind of unvarnished inquiry, so I quizzed him to see exactly what he had in mind. “The Bible?” I said. “There’s a whole lot about God in that book...what do you want to know?”

“Everything!” he said. “I want to know everything… like, how YOU got God.”

Since he said “Everything!” I began sharing the unabridged version of how I became a Christian decades ago. He seemed fascinated, listening carefully to every detail. As he sat pondering what he’d just heard, I turned and faced Crystal, who was sitting there savoring the leftovers of what I had just shared with John.

“Crystal?” I asked. “I know you’re excited about going to church and everything, but have you ever had a time in your life when you knew you believed the Gospel, that you had given your life to God... that you were forgiven?”

“Oh yes!” she said with a beaming smile. “It happened the first day I went to church a few weeks ago.” I still recall that day when she sat crying throughout the entire worship service. On the way home she said, ”for the very first time in my life, I didn’t want to leave.”

There’s hardly ever a subtle moment with John, and there’s nothing subtle about God’s passionate desire to claim the hearts of the ones He loves on Trinity Place. Ira, Crystal, John - all three like dominos falling into the grace of God... -Granny Pam

People Stories, Part 2 – Ira Desirè

Ten-year-old Desirè (pronounced Da-zee-ray) arrived at our doorstep not long after his arrival from a Tanzanian refugee camp.* I don’t think I had ever encountered anyone quite like him. At times, we all experienced great frustration trying to break into his world.

I still remember a conversation during his first year at Granny’s House: “Well, Sweetheart... we really want you to know just how happy we are that...” End of conversation! He lowered his head, turned and walked away mid-sentence. Every now and then, his emotions came hurtling out, and woe to the one who had to endure his angry tirades! He seemed to love slinging that dreaded “N” word around when he taunted neighborhood boys. The parents of his peers were hesitant to have their kids hang out with him…

It seemed that no one was able to span the wall behind which he stored his emotions; emotions he had amassed during his first ten years in Africa where he, his parents, and seven siblings lived with constant hunger, fear, and danger while roaming from nation to nation, camp to camp, seeking safety from genocide, war, and famine. Although difficult for the entire staff, we believed that the Lord brought Desirè to us so that he might experience real “childhood” for the first time in his life. A childhood filled with God’s love, kindness and peace. Quite often, however, we felt like feeble tutors.

Fast forward two years: After eight days at KAA (Kids Across America) Kamp with Granny’s House last summer, Desirè’s countenance is bright and he smiles and talks constantly. It’s not unusual to see him turning flips across our front yard. It’s as if Someone had peeled off the old Desirè – the one who, before, would not hesitate to hurl invective insults at you if you crossed him. Now, he peppers us with questions about God, the Bible, and what Heaven is like. He’s new inside out.

Recently, he told a staff member that people who know God, have joy. “So, I have a lot of joy!” he beamed. We can all see that and are getting to know the new Ira Desirè – the tall lanky kid whose cabin mates at KAA nicknamed him “Avatar;” the kid who personally invited us to his recent baptism where we got to hear him tell of his newfound relationship with the Lord. Yes, we believe in miracles… –Granny Pam




*African children first enrolled at Granny’s House in 2007 and, to date, fifty-percent of our enrolled children are from African and middle- eastern countries: Rwanda, Burundi, The Congo, Tanzania, Liberia, Sudan, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, etc.