The Shawnee Dispatch / Striving for a global impact

Schaun Colin interacts with children on a recent mission trip to India for Westside Family Church. Enlarge photo Contributed photo

By Caroline Boyer

September 25, 2007

Shawnee — Area residents are making an impact all over the world thanks to local churches and one Shawnee resident in particular.

Schaun Colin is known throughout Shawnee as the founder of Oceans of Mercy, a non-profit organization benefiting children and others affected by AIDS in his homeland of South Africa. But after a year and a half as missions pastor of Westside Family Church, he is now helping to spread western Shawnee’s influence to India, Mexico and Thailand.

Colin started the Country Club Café and Oceans of Mercy in 2002, at the same time Westside put its offices upstairs in the Country Club Bank. After years of working so close to one another, Colin approached the bank in November 2005 to ask if they could become an official partner with Oceans of Mercy.

Colin found that Westside’s administrators liked the idea, but he was asked to wait until the church had hired a new missions pastor. The mention of the position caught Colin’s curiosity.

“So I Googled it, and realized it was kind of my calling — that’s exactly who I am,” Colin said.

Colin applied for the job and got it, beginning his work with the church in January of 2006. He immediately became engrossed in the church’s “Extend the Borders” campaign, in which the church is taking on projects in India, Mexico and Thailand, in addition to becoming a partner in Oceans of Mercy.

“The plight of children is very important to our church, so in all four of those countries we have a very strong outreach to children,” Colin said.

In Thailand, where there are an estimated 800,000 children in prostitution, the church is funding a home called Grace House, which will help children get out of prostitution and is currently home to 17 children. They also are partnering with another organization that has helped 32 children escape prostitution.

In Andrha Pradesh, India, the church is purchasing nearly eight acres with plans to build the New Life orphanage for up to 500 children that will include a school to teach children computer and other trade skills. Westside has already been helping the Light of Love Children’s Home in the country, which is home to 450 children, for about five years.

Westside also helps an organization called Wells for Life, started by a church member, which builds much needed water wells all over the country.

The church has been traveling to Mexico for missions trips for seven years, and now it has set up a partnership with a church called Agua Viva in Croc, Mexico, to open a drug rehabilitation youth center that will be able to serve up to 50 youth. To further fund this effort, Westside will partner with two other churches in Iowa.

And of course, there is Oceans of Mercy, which in the last few months has grown by leaps and bounds, thanks in part to a partnership with Westside. In addition to the original children’s village in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, now home to 19 orphans, the organization has adopted orphanages in Alexandria and East London, which are home to 53 and 61 children, respectively.

More churches are helping aid Oceans of Mercy, as well, including the Harvest Ridge Covenant, Cross Roads Christian, Community Life and Sacred Heart Catholic churches in Shawnee.

With all this help, Oceans of Mercy is setting up a school of leadership, which will include programs to help the communities in South Africa develop and oversee internships and missions trips.

The organization also has partnered with C3 Missions and has funding in place to build 100 rondawels, round huts used for homes in South Africa that could house up to eight children with a caregiver. These huts will be built in an area known as Transkei, an economically depressed region north of Port Elizabeth.

“Then there will be 800 orphans that have a home,” Colin said. “That’s huge – that’s pretty awesome.”

With all of these efforts, Colin is helping Westside guide other local churches to have a global impact.

“I just appreciate that Westside is looking beyond just right here; the church has taken on a major decision to impact the world,” he said. “It’s been said in the Bible that those who have been blessed need to be a blessing to others, and this church has been blessed tremendously, so we better be a blessing to others.”