New Beginnings, Old Threads, and the Long Arc of Community

This new year, as I look forward, I find myself looking back. I imagine this is what Jedis in Star Wars feel like when the Force suddenly makes sense. But instead of lightsabers and destiny, let’s talk about faith and courage. This is a tender story. The kind you brace yourself for. So buckle up. I cry at happy things, and this one got me good and felt like a warm and fuzzy way to end the year and look ahead.

If you have ever been to MD’s living room, you know the picture. A teenage boy with his eyes closed, as if he is mid-prayer or mid-dream. His name is Caxton Odhiambo and although he and I didn’t know it at the time, we will been intertwined in some way for most of my life.

When I was sixteen, MD had just been interviewed by the Seattle P-I after winning the lone Truman Scholarship for the whole state of Washington (as her number 1 fan, the older I get, the more I love to brag about that particular accompaniments on MD’s list of many 😅) .

The Truman Scholar & The Intern

Around that time, I started to understand something important. My mom wasn’t just my mom. She was part of something larger than our household because during that season, one name kept surfacing in conversation. Caxton.

Caxton Odhiambo

Taken by Amanda Koster

I heard his name often. Then one day, his photo appeared in our living room. Over the years, that framed image became a quiet reminder that even though bringing up the most wonderful, brilliant, charming, witty daughter is a monumental task as is (I could go on 🤓), MD’s calling extended far beyond our little duo. I didn’t know it yet, but Caxton was a turning point for MD (and for me since that’s when my internship unofficially started).

When she met him, he was fourteen years old and had lost both of his parents. He shared a single mat with his siblings. At night, his younger sister slept between her brothers to keep warm. MD had never witnessed children going without their basic needs in this way while growing up. Something shifted. She could not unsee it. This was the early 2000s, when HIV/AIDS was reshaping entire communities in western Kenya. Children were losing parents. Villages were reorganizing care. Siblings became guardians. Grandmothers became lifelines. What Caxton lived was becoming too common and it was devastating.

In June 2004, a magazine called Colors NW published a photo essay titled It Takes a Village by a brilliant photojournalist named Amdanda Koster. The article documented children growing up in the long shadow of HIV/AIDS, showing not only loss, but the quiet, determined ways communities stepped in when families were torn apart.

That article captured the world Caxton came of age in and it captured the moment that planted the earliest seed of what would eventually become Mwanzo.

Over time, MD and Caxton lost touch. Life moved forward. Or so it seemed.

Then, just recently, MD called me and said, “Intern, guess who I saw today.”

She was standing at the clinic site, now in its final stages of construction, when she noticed a shy young man approaching her. He paused, looked down, and asked, “Excuse me, MD… do you remember me?”

She studied his face and answered honestly that she did not. When she asked his name, he said, “Caxton.”

Decades had passed. But there he was. Standing at the very place his story helped bring into existence.

Caxton today

He’s still a little shy but I’m sure we will get a photo with him and MD soon!

Caxton is now a construction worker. He was working on the clinic itself. The boy who once needed care was now helping build the place that will provide it for others.

This year, as global health funding has been sharply reduced through cuts to programs like PEPFAR, USAID and others, Mwanzo has been racing to complete the clinic to meet widening gaps in care. Health crises do not pause for policy shifts. Communities cannot afford to wait.

As systems fall away, Mwanzo is responding the way it always has. Not by shrinking, but by widening the circle. Plans are already underway for a future inpatient hospital to expand care with dignity and resolve.

Which brings us back to Caxton.

He was not saved by a single intervention. He was carried. By siblings. By neighbors. By a village that stepped in when it had to. And now, he is back in that same community, helping raise the walls of a place that will serve his family, his neighbors, and the next generation.

Mwanzo was never meant to be just a set of services. It is a living web of connection. Education, health, and economic dignity are not separate threads. They are woven together by people who refuse to let one another fall through the gaps.

As we enter a new year, this matters. Moving forward does not mean forgetting where we began. It means carrying those lessons with us. Into the concrete. Into the classrooms. Into the hands that are still building.

The Caxtons of Rabuor have always been part of this story even as they leave the community and when they come back. Thanks to your support, they always will be.

Happy New Year, and blessings to you and yours.