African children get base in N.C.

Church supplies a home for choir between tour stops

Evarisee Mugabo's mother and father were dead, and he was living in a Ugandan orphanage when a talent scout from the African Children's Choir asked him to sing.

That audition was the beginning of a life that Evarisee, 11, could not have imagined. He has toured North America with the choir, visiting Canada and performing and riding roller coasters at Disney World.

Now he and 20 other choir members from Uganda can call a big house in Chatham County home during breaks in their touring.

As they prepared to start an East Coast tour, the children, ages 9 to 12, spent the last month at their Chatham home base, enjoying "nice beds, yummy food and a big yard to play and run around," the chubby-cheeked Evarisee said.

Since 1984, the choir has toured North America and Europe, raising money for schools in Africa. Most of the children have lost one or both parents to war, AIDS or other diseases. Choir membership rotates, with each group touring for a year to 15 months before members return home. Three groups are performing in the States; the other two are touring the West Coast and Texas.

Changes in the children's lives are felt long after they return home, said Elsa Mugyenzi, who was a choir member in 1986 and is now a manager.

Mugyenzi joined the choir at 8, one of 31 children chosen from 500 who auditioned.

"Before the choir found me, I wasn't in school," she said. "When I returned home, I worked through education and through college."

Saturday night, the choir performed at King's Park International Church in Durham to raise money to pay expenses at their Chatham home, called Mirembe House.

Mirembe means "peace," Mugyenzi said. "This is a house of refuge for the children."

The evangelical church bought the house where the choir lives and studies. The children finished exams last week in preparation for four months of traveling that start Monday. The church set the children up with books and toys. And the house is on six acres, giving the children plenty of room to play soccer.

When the children moved in, one girl was amazed that she had her own toothbrush and asked a few of the others if they had their own, too.

Though the choir has performed on national television in the United States, at London's Royal Albert Hall and at the United Nations, churches sponsor most of its dates.

After a performance at King's Park a few years ago, senior minister Ron Lewis learned that the children lived out of a bus and in guest homes during their tours.

"I just thought, they were such great kids, they could probably do better if they had a base," Lewis said. He met with the choir's founder and president, Ray Barnett, a few months later and they began planning a home for the choir in the Triangle.

The 1,400-member church bought the Chatham house and plans to support the choir during its tour, which Lewis estimated will cost $8,000 a month.

The choir will return to Chatham during breaks in the tour. When the choir is in the Triangle, the children will sing at King's Park. The church and the choir will decide whether to continue the relationship after the 15-month tour ends.

The commitment to support the choir leaves the church with a continuing financial responsibility, but Lewis said it is worth it for the children and the Triangle. "It's not like we're just here to help them," he said. "Many are HIV orphans and war orphans, but they carry with them a real attitude of 'We're overcomers.' Because they carry that spirit, they lift other people."