EARLY DEFINING MOMENTS

EARLY DEFINING MOMENTS

Between the ages 9 and 10, Kenneth had two major defining moments.

1. Understanding the heart of a deceased father.
Kenneth was born into a happy family in a Cameroonian village called Batibo. His father, Muwai Acha, was a village kindergarten teacher with modest financial means but a big heart for orphans and poor children. He was selfless man who provided for others in need often forgetting his own needs. In 1986, his father passed away from an unknown cause. He did not have access to medical care. A few months later, Kenneth discovered that his father was born a complete orphan. Muwai’s father died about midway into his mother’s pregnancy and his mother died during delivery. As a result, he was named, Muwai, a name that means orphan or abandoned child. This was in the 1940s. Breast milk was the only food for available for newborns in Batibo. As such, he was fed with locally made palm wine, an alcoholic drink. Fortunately for him, his older sister, who was about twelve years and married, soon gave birth and was able to breastfeed him. Muwai grew up under immense hardship but he was determined to make something of himself. He did and became the first educated person in his village and worked as a kindergarten teacher. Because of his childhood experience, Muwai had a passion for children especially poor children and sought to help many. Learning about his father’s life made a great impact on 10 year old Kenneth. His father became his hero and he desired to serve like his father had done when he grew up. He planned to do something to help orphans and also prevent untimely deaths in poor communities like the one his father lived in.

2. Living in abject Poverty

Living in poverty was one of the best things that happened to me. It taught my heart to understand and to love the poor. Kenneth Acha, MD

Kenneth’s father was the sole breadwinner and after his death, the family plunged into abject poverty. His mother, Grace, was a homemaker and had never worked. Without her husband, obtaining basic needs like food, clothing, medical care, and education for six children became very difficult for her. She suffered through depression and the family suffered with her. Kenneth became very stubborn. Yet, he considers this time of great need, difficulty, and hopelessness to be one of the most blessed periods in his formative years. This period played a critical role in defining who he is today and provided training that he believes he could not have gotten any other way. It taught him to understand what it means to be hopeless and rejected by the society you live in. It taught him that life doesn’t consist in the abundance of things that a person has or the position he holds. It taught him about God’s grace that is able to give joy to a child that is hopeless and miserable on the outside so that she sings on the inside.

VISION DRIVEN LIVING

VISION DRIVEN LIVING

“Where there is no vision, the people perish” King Solomon (Prov. 29:18 KJV)
“The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.” – Helen Keller
“We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision.” unknown.

Vision Conceived.

“If you tell someone your vision and they don’t laugh, it’s not big enough.” John Maxwell.

The year his father died, Kenneth developed a vision to become a physician and help orphans and people in poor communities who like his father did not have access to medical care. Kenneth’s vision was big for a little 10 year old village boy living in the midst of abject poverty and hopelessness. And a lot of people laughed when he confidently shared it. Kenneth remembers how without much thought about the feasibility of attaining such a dream he went about speaking of it as though it was a done deal.

A challenging vision or dream provides purpose, inspires passion, motivation and focus. It clarifies direction and encourages risk taking.

From the Frying Pan and into the Fire.

Sometimes when things get worse, it is a sign that you are doing the right thing.

A couple of years after he developed his dream, things got worse. He dropped out of grade school and stayed home for one year because of lack of tuition of about ten U.S. dollars. On the outside, it was impossible for a 12 year old village boy who had dropped out of grade school to amount to anything. On the inside, Kenneth continued to hold on to his dream. His dream gave him great hope in the middle of a hopeless world. His zeal for his dream even got his mother calling him “doctor” while he was at home as a dropout. Grace didn’t know how he would ever return to school, let alone become a doctor. But because of her son’s passion for his vision, calling him doctor even if she didn’t believe it was all the support she could give.

Miracles happen when you have childlike faith that won’t quit.

“When a man is willing and eager, the gods join in." Aeschylus
"Everything is possible for him who believes." Jesus Christ (Mark 9:23)

After spending a year as a drop out, a stranger came looking for Kenneth. He told him that if he wanted to return to school, he would sponsor him. Just like that. He didn’t even know the man! He was able to return to grade school and this man helped him for two years. Then the man stopped sending support without notice. He came without notice and left the same way. It was almost as if he was saying, “My time is up, I’ve done what God wanted me to do.”

Learning from a window.

"To guarantee success, act as if it were impossible to fail." - Dorothea Brande.
Victory belongs to the most persevering."- Napoleon

All of a sudden, Kenneth was again at the brink of dropping out of grade school. His vision was again at risk. By this time, his desire to achieve his vision had motivated him to work hard and move his grades up from a C grade average to a B plus average. When the school authorities sent him home for lack of tuition (schools in Cameroon charge tuition), he refused to go home. Determined not to fall behind or drop out of school again, Kenneth decided to hide behind his classroom and attend lectures. He knew that he would be severely beaten if he were caught, so he made sure that no one discovered what he was doing. He climbed up a window and hanging from the window sill, he attended lectures writing with one hand and hanging with the other. After doing this for two weeks, what he had feared happened. He was caught by Mr. James, his French teacher. He was so moved by Kenneth’s determination that instead of turning him in to be punished for breaking school rules, he instead decided to offer him a place in his home with food, tuition and books. Prior to this, Kenneth walked two hours to school each way. Living with Mr. James, he only walked 15 minutes to school.
Kenneth benefited tremendously from this help. His vision continued to motivate him and sent his grades skyrocketing to the top of his class—from B plus average to straight As. Two years later, Kenneth finished middle school at the top of his class. That same year, Mr. James was transferred to teach in a different part of the country. He and Kenneth separated. In a way, his own time was also up and he had offered the help that he needed to offer. Left alone again, Kenneth was fortunate to win scholarship into a "rich" Christian High School. There he connected with many school mates, many from wealthy families. The two years at this school would prove to be a critical period in his life. He graduated valedictorian and senior prefect (student leader—Cameroon high schools have student leaders) in 1998.

Major Depression: The Darkness Before Dawn.

Don’t make vows to God or to anyone. Jesus Christ & his brother James (Mt 5:34 & Js 5:12)

After high school, Kenneth tried unsuccessfully to enter the only medical school in Cameroon. Large bribes were requested to be made under the table to get into the medical school. Severely frustrated by this seeming impasse Kenneth fell into a depression. At his lowest point, he went into a toilet and prayed asking God to take him out of Cameroon to a country where he could achieve his vision. He promised that if God answered his prayer, he would become a Pastor if God wanted him to be one. Why pastor? In his estimation, Pastoring was the least attractive profession he knew. He said that because that was the biggest sacrifice he thought he could make. For some reason, he believed God would grant his request in exchange for this ‘big’ sacrifice.

The Dawn: Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

Within months of this prayer, Eunice, a friend Kenneth had made in high school that was living in the U.S reconnected with Kenneth and helped get admissions for him into Texas Southern University in Houston. Not long after that, his half uncle offered to pay the flight.  Just like that and Kenneth came to the U.S. He landed in New York in the middle of December with only a light short sleeve shirt. He forgot about winter (there is no winter in Cameroon). From New York City, he took a train to Rochester, NY where the winter was worse. The only person he knew in the U.S lived in Rochester, so he first went there so that while there he could figure out how to get to Houston. From there, after making many phone calls, he found a stranger willing to keep him for a little while. From Rochester he took greyhound bus to Houston, Texas—a three day ride. He arrived Houston hungry and completely out of money.

Beginning life in the U.S without money.

Kenneth started life from scratch with zero dollars. He worked in restaurant kitchens washing dishes and receiving below minimum wage. In 2002, he became a Christian. After spending two years at Houston community College, he moved on to Baylor University in Waco and then won scholarship into Rice University in Houston. From there, he entered medical school in 2005 without obtaining a Bachelor’s degree.

For nearly 18 years, Kenneth had been pursuing his dream of becoming a physician. That dream became a compass that guided him, motivated him, determined what courses he took, which friends he hung out with, everything he did. His dream protected him from distraction and from pursuing any career only for the sake of making money. Finally, he was in medical school.

Shaping Destiny is Founded in 2005

After becoming a Christian, Kenneth discovered that God had a huge passion for serving the poor. There are over 2,000 (two thousand) verses in the bible on justice and poverty! In 2005, God called or confirmed his call to serve orphans. So Kenneth founded Shaping Destiny barely two months before beginning medical school. The vision of Shaping Destiny was to help orphans achieve their dreams and reach their God given potential by helping move them from a life of slavery, poverty, and hopelessness to a life of joy, hope, and a bright future. Kenneth was excited to begin serving as a vicarious physician for orphans whom he considers his patient population by running an organization that provides medical care, food, education, shelter, and discipleship to orphans even before he finished medical school.

Dream Fulfilled!

In May 2009, after about 22 years of holding on to that dream through diverse storms and circumstances that told him he couldn't achieve the dream, Kenneth walked onto a stage at Texas A&M College of Medicine and was called Dr. Kenneth Acha for the first time.

The Power of a Vision or a Dream

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Thomas Edison

Through storms, miracles, near misses, successes and failures, Kenneth achieved his dream. Now, when he looks back, he can see God's fingerprints all over his life even when he wasn’t a Christian. A crucial lesson that he has learned in the trenches of life over the past 25 years is that there is great power in a dream. That when you add strong and unflinching faith to a dream, God takes notice. You can achieve your dreams if you pursue them and never give up, it doesn't matter where you are in life. A strong dream will change you and your circumstances. It’s almost as if a dream is self-fulfilling if it has enough gas in its engine. That gas is your faith and determination not to quit. Many people fail to dream because they look at themselves and their circumstances. That is a mistake, you only need to have faith in the dream and don’t give up for the dream to change you and your circumstances to align you to fulfill the dream. Refusing to quit and holding on to your dream is the secret to achieving any dream. Such determination and faith moves God and he acts. For Kenneth, from the moment he began to hold to his dreams and would not quit, he saw his school performance rise from C grade average to top of the class and stayed there. He has seen strangers come looking for him and offering needed help when he dropped out of school and stayed home for a year—in his words, a total act of God. He has flown on the wings of a dream powered by faith from a remote Cameroonian village to become a physician in the greatest nation on earth. Time after time, there was reason on the outside to fear that the dream could not be achieved. But Kenneth has learned that if a person is strong on the inside and doesn’t quit, the inside will always change the outside. The outside cannot change the inside unless the inside gives up.
You don’t need to dream something that you can already achieve. A dream gives a person hope and who hopes for what he already has? Dream something much bigger than you can achieve and then don’t change your mind on the inside but hold to your dream. Your world would change to make way for that dream.
The power of a vision or a dream is one of the most important forces God has given man. Vision has created the world as we see it. Every invention, from the light bulb to the airplane, the computer, to internet super highways, to satellites, to skyscrapers, to medical and scientific breakthroughs, everything begins and ends with vision. Without vision “nothing was made that has been made.”

You are never too young or too old to dream to change your world. You can begin dreaming today! It doesn’t matter what you want to do. Unless you are intentional, dream and pursue the dream, you may not be able to live your life to your full potential.

A NEW ERA OF MINISTRY

A NEW ERA OF MINISTRY

Helping others achieve their dreams.

The best thing to do after achieving your dream is to help others achieve theirs.

Kenneth’s new dream is to help other people achieve their dreams. He does this in two major ways.
1. With orphans & Underprivileged Children & Communities: Through his work with Shaping Destiny, Kenneth works to fulfill Shaping Destiny’s vision of helping move orphans from poverty, slavery and hopelessness to a place of joy, hope, and a bright future. He is also an inspirational speaker and coach who provides mentoring, coaching and leadership training to orphans, showing them from his story and experience that they (many of whom live in the circumstances Kenneth once lived) can have true hope to attain their dreams if they dream and work hard. God will send help if they don’t quit.

2. In the U.S: Kenneth enjoys public speaking and has a passion to inspire people of all ages and walks of life to dream and pursue their dreams. He also does coaching and mentoring.

Evangelistic Ministry
If you make a vow to the LORD your God, do not be slow to pay it, for the LORD your God will certainly demand it of you and you will be guilty of sin. Moses (Dt 23:24) 

After practicing medicine for 14 months as a resident physician, Kenneth and his wife Ellen knew that it was time to obey God’s call for them to add evangelism and church planting to medicine and orphan care. As a result, they made one of their toughest decisions as a married couple to put a hold on Kenneth’s fulltime practice of medicine to obey God. It was tough because that meant zero salary for Kenneth at a time when they were faced with mounting medical student loans. But they were certain that it was important to hold on to nothing so strongly that God’s voice would not be obeyed. This decision has turned out to be one of the greatest blessings for them. It has opened many doors for winning souls, serving more orphans through Shaping Destiny and doing mission trips abroad. Kenneth joined Liberty Baptist Seminary and is finishing a Master’s degree in Evangelism and Church planting.

In September 2011, Kenneth, Ellen and their two sons Joshua and Caleb moved to Austin, Texas, to start the God Loves Austin, a multicultural evangelistic movement that will reach that great city. About 85-90 percent of Austin is unchurched and Kenneth and Ellen are excited that God has called them to be part of planting a vibrant Evangelistic ministry to reach that beloved city. Besides planting a ministry in Austin, Kenneth has a passion for planting evangelistic churches in areas of the world that don’t know Jesus. He sees such church planting and discipleship of Christians a strategy that complements orphan care because it will train local people to put their love of God to work by serving orphans in their own communities.

Combining Faith & Medicine
Faith and medicine blend perfectly. Many of the great scientists and physicians of the past were pious believers. Over the years, a few physicians have served as great pastors or evangelists.
Kenneth has said “God trained me as a physician to care for the human body (the flesh), the human mind, and to deliver physical babies into the world. I passionately love to care for patients. I serve God doing that. But God has also given me the amazing privilege of doing something else for people. He has trained me through seminary school and my personal experiences to care for human souls and to deliver spiritual babies. I love to deliver both physical and spiritual babies and love to sign birth certificates in both cases. But I realize that spiritual babies live eternally and that is of eternal importance to God. I enjoy caring for both spirit and body, both pastoring and medicine, and I think the two complement one another greatly”

Kenneth is also a cofounder of Life Embassy Adoptions, a ministry which helps adoptive families and adoptive children achieve their dreams of a family.