It’s been almost two years since Wayne Leis first left his home in Hawkesville for an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. With a trusty wrench in his back pocket and a slew of tools waiting for him in a shipping container at customs, Leis was on his way to connect with the youth of the developing country by teaching them the tools of his trade as a mechanic.
“That was amazing. The kids that want to come out and see what you are doing they just come. It’s not sort of an organized thing,” he said of his time in the orphanage run by Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos (NPH) International.
The organization – an international effort headed by members of a Christian mission focused on providing a permanent home for orphaned children – first piqued Leis’ interest after he helped his son, an education director at St. James Lutheran Church, with a charitable project NPH.
Learning more about the orphanage’s work, Leis started to focus on how he could contribute his skills to the education of kids in need of teachers and role models.
“That’s the thing: a lot of the kids; you ask them what do you want to do, and they say ‘I want to grow up to be a rock star …’ and you know that that’s not a realistic situation. They need to learn to do something. Some of the kids say they want to be a doctor or a dentist or these kinds of things but you’ve got to catch their interest. What you do is you start working on stuff and the kids are just wide-eyed.”
Unlike here, most of the young people there have no interaction with technology: it’s all new to them. With skilled workers in short supply, and equipment and parts even scarcer still, he has his hands full every time he’s down there.
“My to-do list is a never-ending list,” he laughed.
From small engines to trucks and RVs, from electrical work to structural issues, he’s had to tackle all kinds of problems.
“I’ve worked on pretty much everything there is. I don’t have to go looking for the work – it finds me.”
Though Leis was planning to spend his time teaching, an unexpected project on his last visit would bring him and the orphans of Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos a pleasant surprise.
One thing he didn’t plan on was to start revamping a bicycle program that had been stagnant due to a lack of hands and eyes to repair the bikes and supervise the kids. He took on that role and immediately became a big hit with the kids who were able to ride around on the paved trails within the orphanage’s campus.
“There are about 220 kids there and unless there is somebody to look after them the bicycles are all locked away. Stuff like that needs to be looked after and controlled and repaired,” he explained.
“With the bicycles the best days I had was when I had the wrenches in the boys’ hands; when they would be helping me get the bikes repaired and fix the flat tires and put the chains back on.”
Now 62 years old, Leis has found a renewed sense of purpose in helping at the orphanage, but the journey was not without it’s hard moments for him as well as the children.
“A few times there were some bicycle accidents; when they took a kid to the hospital because he got a handlebar in the kidney. Sometimes they have tough days and you’ve got to help them out the best you can,” he said.
The orphanage houses children aged from infancy to 18 years of age. The organization does not give the children up for adoption and instead provides a permanent home until the children come of age. This means that the orphanage’s children form family bonds within the institution, Leis explained. A vocational school is being planned for the orphanage and Leis hopes to someday to continue his teaching there as well.
“I will probably be teaching small engine repair and welding and fabrication down there – that’s sort of the long-term plan.”
In the meantime, he works at keeping the much-used equipment – the long list of which now includes bicycles – in running order, relying on the equipment and parts that donations and a limited budget can provide.
Leis has been back twice since his initial three-month visit and his future seems to be tied to the children whose lives he has affected.
“When you’re there you have really hard days and you have really amazing days. The days watching the kids play on the bicycles or playing on the roller blades it just amazing,” he said.
“The main emphasis is looking after the kids, to give them some hope.”
Leis leaves again for the Dominican Republic in mid-January, planning for another 10-week stay.
