PARKERSBURG - A Vienna native who is living and working at an orphanage in Zimbabwe has written a book about her experiences there.

Janine Roberts, 31, says her faith drew her to the Fairfield Children's Homes in the area known as the Old Mutare Mission in eastern Zimbabwe where she intends to stay.

"I just fell in love with the kids," said Roberts, the daughter of Randy and Becki Roberts of Vienna.

Roberts, through St. Paul's United Methodist Church in Parkersburg, first visited the orphanage as a Methodist missionary in 1998 with a cousin, the former Tiffany Thompson. Roberts returned in 2002, then moved there and lived there from 2004 to 2007 when she left when the political climate began to change.

She plans to return to Zimbabwe in September.

In the two years since she left, Roberts wrote a book, "Dare to Love Completely, a Memoir from Zimbabwe." It was published through Xulon Press, a publisher of religious books.

The book recounts her time at the orphanage and the religious convictions that led her there and to remain.

"It's what God wanted me to do," Roberts said.

Zimbabwe suffers from a high mortality rate from AIDS, which greatly lowers life expectancy, according to the U.S. Government. Less than 4 percent of the population is over 65.

Roberts works with Zimbabwean volunteers on Project Hope, a program providing nutrition, education and medical care to orphans. Project Hope enables the children to remain with their relatives. Many of the children are HIV positive, she said.

"The work I do is a lot like social work," she said.

Roberts visited the orphanage in January for five weeks to make sure the program was still running before returning to the states, but the young children she knew when she left weren't so young anymore, she said.

"I missed being there to see them grow up," Roberts said.

Roberts plans to remain in Zimbabwe, to live and work there.

"As long as they give me a visa," she said.

Life is different in Zimbabwe compared to Vienna, Roberts said.

"It's a tremendous lifestyle change," she said.

Electricity frequently goes on and off, there's only one TV station and one newspaper, water is carried from a well and usually on the head of the carriers, and the political climate heats up during elections when the different sides try to gain control of the government, Roberts said.

"If you're not involved, they don't bother you," she said.

However, Zimbabwe has its amenities, according to Roberts.

Friendships are important, she said.

"People just sit and talk with each other," Roberts said. "It's about relationships."

Roberts is a 1995 graduate of Parkersburg High School. She graduated from West Virginia Wesleyan College in 1999 with a degree in elementary education and from the Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky in 2004 with a master's in world missions.

newsandsentinel.com

By Special correspondent