Search For Happiness Lands Him With Needy Kids
Children weren’t part of Jerry Lee Heerema’s grand plan. His life had no room for them.
He wanted to explore the world unencumbered, live where and do what he wanted - until his life unraveled two years ago a few months before his 40th birthday.
Alone and unhappy, Jerry Lee asked God for help. He fasted and studied the Bible for months, until the cloud over him lifted. Then his faith was so strong that he entrusted his future to God.
“I don’t know any other way to explain it,” Jerry said a few days ago before flying to Mexico. “I acted on faith.”
Faith took him first to Hawaii, where he landed with no idea what to do. A pastor picked him up as he hitchhiked, introduced him to friends, prayed with him. Jerry stayed seven weeks until he knew he was ready for bigger adventures.
While he was in Hawaii, his rental home in Coeur d’Alene sold. Jerry had traveled in Latin America years earlier and knew it was time to return. He planned to work with starving children, an overwhelming drive in him since he renewed his faith.
Jerry headed for Guatemala but landed first in Oaxaca, Mexico, about 250 miles southeast of Mexico City. A family immediately offered him a room, so he stayed. A church-run children’s home nearby was in desperate need of his volunteer help.
Jerry found 22 kids there. Myra was 6. Spinal meningitis had left her in a coma for three years. Martin was 12 and tough from years of abuse. He tested Jerry. One girl had been shot. A boy with cerebral palsy had been abandoned.
Jerry worked in the kitchen, drove, helped the children with their physical therapy.
“I was never so happy in my life,” he said.
He stayed five months, learned Spanish and left to tie up any loose ends at home that would stand in the way of an extended stay in Oaxaca. He wanted to return to help street children who struggle for food and clothes.
By last week, Jerry’s life was in order. People who knew about his mission had given him money to cover his transportation, room and board for six months.
He plans to cook rice, beans and tortillas in his room and deliver meals to the children. He wants to collect shoes, clothes and medical supplies to share. He hopes to make friends.
“I’m not a teacher, preacher or missionary,” Jerry said, his eyes on a picture he carries with him of his friends at the children’s home. “I’m just going to do what I was called to do.”
Who was that masked (wo)man?
The need for money brings out the genius in some people. In the Kootenai County Arts Council’s case, it inspired director Kathy Flint. She wants money to support the council’s non-profit Gallery by the Lake and is taking, appropriately, a creative approach.
Kathy wants the community to make masks for the gallery to auction off the week before Halloween. She’s invited artists she knows, legislators, celebrities (like newspaper columnists). Anything goes maskwise, but the gallery probably won’t display anything offensive.
You don’t need a personal invitation to participate. The more masks, the more money. Plus, think how great it would be to open your door to a Halloween trick-or-treater wearing your mask. Kathy needs the masks by Sept. 30. The auction will be Oct. 24. Call 667-0625 for details.
Wild summer
I missed Silverwood’s Grizzly this year, but screamed as I bounced through the Clark Fork River’s whitewater in a raft and trembled as trucks tore past me on my bike on U.S. Highway 95.
Where were your wildest moments this summer? Babble coherently about them to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; send a fax to 765-7149; or call 765-7128.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo