Pauline Adelia Leen

Paula Leen, 89, founder of Murwira Children’s Home in Zimbabwe, passed away on September 30, 2023, in Portland, Oregon.

You may not have known Paula Leen, but she made so many lives immeasurably better. Humility and service to others were two of the most precious attributes she valued and she practiced both with gusto and heart.

Born on June 21, 1934 to Harold and Juanita Appley in Amity, Oregon, Pauline Adelia Leen, known affectionately as Paula, would grow to become a quiet hero in so many communities.

A devoted mother, friend, Adventist Woman of the Year, and dedicated humanitarian, Paula always put others before herself.

When she saw anyone in need, she jumped into action.

Paula, founder of Murwira Children’s Home (now known as Kuda Vana Children's Home), was a remarkable woman who cared tenderly for the children and people in Zimbabwe. The care and concern God placed in this woman’s heart for the most vulnerable has had a lasting effect.

In 1981, Paula received an invitation to work as a secretary at the Seventh Day Adventist Conference Office in Harare, Zimbabwe. Paula spent her life savings to make her life-changing journey to Zimbabwe.

When the Seventh Day Adventist Conference received shipments of used clothing, Paula began spending her free time to take the clothing and food to needy families in the rural village of Marewo. That first trip forever changed her life. She began making the same journey to Marewo repeatedly; eventually she bought a big old van so that she could carry more each week. Developing some health issues, the East African Division of the Seventh Day Adventist Church sent Paula home to Portland, Oregon on what they thought was a permanent medical leave. Instead, Paula began volunteering with International Children’s Care orphanage in Romania. While there, Paula took care of orphans and street children in Bucharest. Always wanting to do more, it was only because of red tape that the authorities in Romania only allowed her to do social work: the distribution of clothes and food. That experience only deepened her resolve to help Zimbabwe’s orphans. Returning to Zimbabwe in 1997, she gave a name to her calling: “Zimbabwe Orphans Project.” (ZOP.)

Paula soon understood the deep poverty and hunger afflicting the rural poor. Using her small Social Security check and some help from her U.S. friends and Amistad International, in 2000 Paula helped the people in Murwira to start planting large food gardens, a 1,700-tree orchard, multiple dams, boreholes, silt traps, more than 20 wells and storage tanks as she protected the crops from hungry orangutans. Paula called it the Work for Food Program. By 2006 she had given away more than one million items of clothing. She became the only employer in the area.

At the height of the AIDS epidemic, Paula’s heart was broken to see so many AIDS orphans (one village alone had 114 orphans). She decided to start building her own orphanage for AIDS orphans in 2003. In 2004, she opened Murwira Children’s Home (now called Kuda Vana Children’s Home). Working long days and driving her beat-up truck, Big Blue, over washboard roads, Paula provided transportation to local clinics for the sick; lunches for thousands of children at local schools; and she performed countless small acts of kindness to people she met everywhere. When Zimbabwe’s currency became completely worthless, and her truck became a hearse, she wrote “I keep thinking the situation in Zimbabwe can’t get worse and then it does! I can’t keep people from being hungry, but I can keep them from starving to death.”

Yet somehow Paula kept her children’s home, gardens and large food programs going and growing. Paula always thought God was listening to her pleas for more miracles.

One of the first orphans Paula welcomed was baby Joyleen who now, as an adult, is following in her footsteps and is often sharing her clothes and food with those in need. Joyleen recalls her childhood as carefree, happy and her life at Murwira as now some of the best memories she has.

Those from Kuda Vana who knew her, call her their mother, their angel, and their hero. Australian volunteer, Yvonne Wyer, commented, “The first quality that struck me with Paula is her unfailing compassion and empathy. She is probably one of the most empathetic people I have met.” “For Paula, to see a need is to meet it head-on," said Aussie volunteer Lorna McCallum.

When she retired from the orphanage at 80, she moved to College Place and never one to stop her philanthropic efforts, helped start Shamira International (SI). Shamwari International (SI), a nonprofit organization inspired by Paula, works with orphans and underprivileged children in Zimbabwe. Members of SI including Paula Leen, Joanie Lucarelli, Carolyn Shanks, Bob Shanks, Frank Millar, Kate Ely, and Stephen Machado, have assisted with high school and college fees for orphanage aged-out students and currently assisting Musabayana Elementary School, near Kuda Vana Orphanage in Zimbabwe, to secure clean water supply for drinking, sanitation, and agricultural projects.

Her daughter, DeNeice, is so thankful for the outpouring of love for her mother.

“I remember someone asking for money way back when. I said, ‘Mom, they may be taking advantage.’ Her response, ‘I’d rather give to the nine that don’t need it to be sure I give to the one that does.’ That is what she lived by. That is what she grew to be Kuda Vana today.

Thank you to Karen Kotoske for helping her get launched and funded. Thank you to Margo Rees, her dear friend that volunteered, supported her and still supports Kuda Vana today. Thank you to the Ordelheides and all involved for carrying her dream forward. Thank you to Carol Johnson, her friend of 50 plus years who not only went over and volunteered, but who introduced the Ordelheides to her.

She lives on in every kid she fostered, every volunteer that came over, every donor that trusted her work, every person she touched.

She did not believe in pride, but I am so very proud of her. Her dedication, self-sacrifice and absolute love for the children. I know the next words she’ll hear are, ‘Well done my good and faithful servant.’

Thank you, so many of you, workers, volunteers, friends and family for supporting her efforts. Every single one of you were her family. I know and trust she lives on in you.”

Paula is survived by her children; Greg Wallace and DeNeice Wallace Worthington, her son in law, Bill Worthington, grandchildren; Phin Worthington, Avery Worthington, and Sydney Wallace, as well as numerous beloved nieces, nephews, and friends.

In lieu of flowers, the family encourages you to donate to https://www.kudavana.org/donate and https://www.shamwari-international.org/

Any gift made to Kuda Vana on Giving Tuesday, November 28 2023, will go directly to Kuda Vana’s Youth Transition program in honor of Paula, and will be matched up to $25,000.

Pay it forward for Auntie Paula…make her proud!