Wake Forest Athletics
An Inspired Journey
7/3/2006 12:00:00 AM | Football
July 3, 2006
The following article was published in the most recent issue of Gold Rush magazine. For more in-depth stories involving Wake Forest athletics, subscribe to Gold Rush by calling ISP Sports at (336) 768-3400.
During the civil war in Liberia, Feeta Naimen fled her home. She was squatting in an abandoned house when she heard a soldier come up behind her.
"Woman, take the children," he said. Ma Feeta said, "I have no children."
He said it again: "Woman, take the children."
"I have no children."
"Woman, take the children, or I will kill them, and I will kill you."
"All right, I will take them," she said.
And with that, Ma Feeta had 70 children, and she had to find a way to take care of them.
Zac Selmon and his family know this story well, and they have taken the opportunity to give the tale a happy ending.
Selmon, a Deacon football player, recently returned from two weeks in Liberia, where he helped build a school for the children in Feeta Naimen's care. Inspired by her story and the help they were able to provide, Zac and Shannon Selmon established the Shine Foundation late last year, an aid organization they hope will write happy endings for others around the world in the coming years.
The foundation has grown to include the entire Selmon family, along with so many more people around their home in Norman, Okla. It all started, though, when Lauren Selmon went to work for Samaritan's Purse, a relief-based organization headed by Franklin Graham, in the summer of 2004. Selmon's internship took her to Liberia, on the southwestern coast of Africa, where she first met the woman everyone knows as "Ma Feeta" in the town of Gbarnga. By then, Feeta had been caring for the orphans, originally aged 2 to 19, for about seven years.
"When Feeta first saw the children, they were tied together by their shirttails," said Shannon Selmon, 26, the oldest of the Selmon children. "She had no help, no food and no money, and she was living in a rickety lean-to when she couldn't find other places to stay.
"Soon, she went to work in a farm that would give her food for the children, she found other jobs to earn money for a shelter, and she made sure the children had prayer time twice a day. She is a phenomenal woman of faith, and a true inspiration to everyone who meets her."
With Lauren Selmon's help, Samaritan's Purse began providing aid to Ma Feeta and the children, most of whose parents died in Liberia's 15-year-long civil war. The group eventually built an orphanage, which was called Rainbow Town.
"This woman, Ma Feeta, found the calling for her life," Zac Selmon said. "For many of these children, Ma Feeta was the only family they ever knew. She would do anything for those kids, and they have all become such wonderful people, so mature for their age and so joyful."
By the end of that summer, Lauren Selmon knew that Rainbow Town needed more of her time and energy, so she joined Samaritan's Purse full time at the end of her internship. She also formed a special bond with one little girl, Christiana. The Selmons' mother, Kathryn, remembers a phone call late that summer nearly two years ago.
"Lauren called us from Liberia on her cell phone, told us about Christiana, and said, 'I can't leave her behind,'" Kathryn said. "She wanted us to adopt this child. Lauren has a gentle spirit, and this was obviously heavy on her heart. We have such faith in her that it didn't take more than a day to decide this needed to be done.
"I mean, imagine someone walking up to you, giving you 75 children and telling you to keep them for 10 years. How could we not help?"
That one life, the little piece of Rainbow Town that the Selmons took home with them, was the inspiration for what came next. Shannon and Zac fell in love with Christiana, just as Lauren had before them, and immediately, they wanted to do more.
As they began to plan a trip to Liberia, Zac and Shannon soon realized this could grow into something much bigger than any one trip. They had the fund-raising ability (Selmon's father, former NFL player Dewey Selmon, had contacts throughout Oklahoma through his construction business, and mother Kathryn Selmon has a public-relations background), they had people willing to help around the world (Zac's oldest sister, Megan, works for the State Department in Pakistan, and Lauren would still be in Liberia), they had the inspiration from Ma Feeta and Christiana, and most importantly, they had the ambition to get it done.
With that, the Shine Foundation was born. Helping Ma Feeta is the foundation's first project, but others in Africa and the United States are in the planning stages.
A class Zac took at Wake Forest last fall, Religion in Public Life, taught him about how charitable organizations work, and even gave him the chance to work on the foundation's startup for class credit (through the class's public-service component).
It all led up to May 20, when the foundation sponsored a 14-member team's journey to Gbarnga. The team's primary goal was to build a school, a chapel and a kitchen for Rainbow Town.
"Ma Feeta has always wanted her children to learn and become educated, not only in their faith but in the world," Shannon said. "A school was the natural place to start adding to the orphanage."
But the team did so much more. A dentist friend, Dr. Bill Blum of Norman, joined them and saw patients who had never had their teeth checked in their lives.
"Dr. Bloom was the most popular man in Liberia, I believe," Zac said. "The wife of the country's vice president came to see him."
A pastor from Miami, David Keasler, held a pastor's conference to teach others how to preach the word of God. About 50 people showed up from throughout the country for that, Zac said, including some who walked 90 minutes each day to get there.
The children at the orphanage also got plenty of sports training. Zac, his father, his sisters (all of whom played college basketball), two fellow Wake Forest athletes (football player Jeremy Thompson and track athlete Ashley Dunigan), and family friend Tommie Harris of the Chicago Bears all played sports with the kids, gave them some equipment and even set up some games.
"We set up a basketball tournament and ended up with 800 people from the community, there to play and watch," Zac said.
Mostly, though, those who went got the chance to see what life in Liberia is really like and how much their contributions were helping.
"There is so much there I was so unaware of," Zac said. "Some of the workers who spent all day lugging things around in the heat said they earned only two dollars a day. There is so much need there, but there is also so much potential. I walked out onto the beach near the site, and it was overwhelming. In spite of all the torn buildings, it was the prettiest beach I've ever seen.
"It made me want to do so much more for these people."
And there is still more to do. Samaritan's Purse and Touch the World Ministries, along with the Shine Foundation, hope to eventually build Rainbow Town three dormitories, a dining hall and a medical clinic. Lauren Selmon and others are already scouting other locations in Africa where the foundation can center its next project, with plans to help America's inner cities sometime in 2007.
And Kathryn and Dewey Selmon, whose adoption of now 9-year-old Christiana helped to inspire all this, are adopting a second child from the orphanage in late June. Little Gabrielle is 6 years old.
But the Selmons will tell you that this story isn't really about them - it's about those who persevere and find faith even in the most difficult of circumstances. It's about people like Ma Feeta Naimen.
Shannon Selmon got the chance to tell Ma Feeta that her story was attracting some attention in the United States, through Samaritan's Purse and some media reports.
"I told Ma Feeta, 'People will hear your story, and will be inspired by what you have done,' but she wouldn't have any of that. 'I don't do this for man,' she said. 'I do it for God.'"
-- By Jay Reddick
To find out more, write to:
The Shine Foundation 2725 South Berry Road Norman, OK 73072
The Foundation can also be reached by phone at (405) 321-SHINE, or on the Web at www.shinefoundation.org.
Players Mentioned
