"A Heart for Africa"
Janine Maxwell’s Unbelievable Story

Just a few years ago, Janine Maxwell was the owner of Onyx, the most successful marketing firm run by a woman in Canada. Clients included Disney, Pepsi & Kraft. Needless to say, she had it all: money, prestige, a loving family & beautiful home… even a golden retriever. But something wasn’t right.

Shattered by 9-11
On September 11, 2001, Janine was in New York City: “I was in my hotel which was above Grand Central Station. We were evacuated by gunfire by police running up the road saying there are bombs in Grand Central Station. So in my brand-new Adrienne Vittadini shoes I ran 65 blocks! After 911 I didn’t want to come out. I was depressed.”

Then someone gave Janine “The Purpose-Driven Life.” She read Pastor Rick Warren’s statement that “We are not an accident!” She realized that her tragic experience WASN’T for nothing, that she was made for a purpose, “And I better get up & get at it!”

An Epiphany Named Kelvin
In April 2003, Janine was invited by friends to film the needs of the street kids in Africa for a Canadian TV station. They ended up visiting an orphanage for boys in Zambia. The take-charge, business woman went from staying at five-star hotels to living in an HIV/AIDS testing clinic.

There, on the streets, Janine experienced an epiphany: an eight-year-old boy named Kelvin. Kelvin’s middle class parents had died from AIDS when he was 5. Kelvin was picked up by a street gang who became his new family. Riddled with disease, and eating out of garbage cans, he was relegated to “dirty stealing.”

Janine was transformed by this first trip to Africa.

Back to Business… & HOPE
When she returned to Canada, Janine dealt with the pressing problems of business. But, after being in Africa, she had a hard time accepting Western-style crisis: “When you are bitten by the Africa bug, you can’t go back to where you were before.” A year after her trip, she officially shut Onyx down.

Today Janine is the Vice President of HOPE initiatives for Heart for Africa, the mission movement Dr. Bruce Wilkinson started two years ago. Its mission is to feed all of Africa one backyard garden at a time (www.heartforafrica.org).

To hear the rest of Janine Maxwell’s unbelievable story, watch her on “Connecting Point” this weekend. For times & listings, see www.enewhope.org/nhn.

Final note: Last year 53 people from Hawaii traveled exactly halfway around the world to be gardeners of vegetables & planters of hope for the most vulnerable of Africa’s people, the children. Their experience in the remotest regions of Swaziland in Southern Africa (about Hawaii’s size) – with the world’s number one HIV/AIDS infections – was life-changing.