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By Daryn Kagan 3:49 PM Saturday, August 6, 2011

A little sympathy please.

It’s been a tough week.

I’ve been doing my best to keep up with my houseguest, a 73-year-old former nun.

It has not gone well.

I’ve told you readers before about Kate Fletcher. She’s the can-do dynamo who left the sisterhood in her late 40s and married. Twenty years later when she found herself widowed with no children, she knew she had more to give. So she Googled, “Where does one go to love children?” When up came, “Nairobi, Kenya,” she knew she had her answer. She sold her house, gave away her car and took off for Africa.

Two years at an orphanage helped her create her vision — a home for girls who had lost their parents to HIV/AIDS. Hekima Place opened in 2005.

She’s now up to 64 girls, ages 1 to 22. How does someone with no nonprofit knowledge and a very limited retirement income figure out how to do that? She’s a woman who lives her life in perpetual drive.

Hekima Place started with a few cottages rented on some leased land. A couple of years ago, Kate decided they would need to own their own land and buildings. “Do you realize how much money that would cost?” critics pointed out. “About a million bucks,” Kate figured. They told her she couldn’t do it.

One of the first things she did when she arrived at my house was show me pictures of the freshly built houses and dining hall on their new land. What a great closing act for an older woman who has worked so hard. She could call it good. Instead, this has only sparked her next project.

“This is where I want to build the girls’ high school,” she pointed in one of the photos. “We must serve the poor girls living in the nearby villages. Keep them in school so they can’t be married off at age 11.”

With energy like that I should’ve known better than to try to make this woman relax. Her monthlong visit here in the U.S. began with a four-day visit to my home. I thought taking it easy would be a great gift. My mistake. She was moving so fast through our local shopping mall that I actually lost her.

I did get her to indulge for a couple hours sitting on the couch watching reruns of crime shows such as “Bones” and “The Mentalist.” I was feeling pretty good about myself until four of us went to get in the car.

“Mum Kate, you get in the front seat,” I insisted. “Mum Kate, Mum Kate,” I repeated as she scrambled around the other side of the car like a naughty 4-year-old and popped in the back.

“Mum Kate, I told you to get in the front,” I said reminding her it has more space and is the place of honor.

“I’m sitting back here,” she said defiantly as she snapped in her seat belt with emphasis. “I’ve been behaving all day, and it’s boring!”

I should’ve known better. Well-behaved, well-relaxed women don’t get orphanages built halfway across the world.

“How do you do it?” I asked her one night. “How do you keep going despite all the challenges and all the naysayers?”

She looked me clear in the eye and said, “I figured out a long time ago that I need to be needed. These girls needing me is my purpose and keeps me going.”

It’s hard to tell who’s saving whom — Mum Kate or the girls saving her.

As I put Mum Kate on the plane to her next U.S. stop, I reflected on the lessons of the week: My idea of a perfect gift might be someone else’s nightmare; find the thing that fuels your heart to keep going long after others have given up; and, finally, behaving well just might be entirely overrated.

Daryn Kagan is the creator of DarynKagan.com, She is the author of “What’s Possible! 50 True Stories of People Who Dared To Dream They Could Make a Difference.”

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