Paige Mackie, of Arlington, recently returned from three months in Kenya where she spent time with children in the slums of Nairobi and offered a compassionate hand to orphans infected with HIV or just abandoned by their families.

“It was very humbling,” Mackie said. “They welcome you and bam, you are friends.”

Mackie was based in Nairobi for two months where she spent most of her time in Kibera, the largest slum in Africa. She tutored two sixth-grade girls classes and younger children as well, offering songs, crafts and Bible lessons.

During afternoons three days a week, she spent time in a boys detention center for 8- to 18-year-olds.

“There were 35 boys in there,” she said. “They weren’t criminals, but they were locked up.”

She said she was tutoring them, too, but basically just spending time with the boys who were living in a warehouse.

“The living quarters were just terrible,” she said, noting that the boys all really enjoyed drawing. Their activities included English language lessons and math and, for fun, they played soccer and other games, and had Bible lessons and crafts.

The granddaughter of Husky coach Jim Lambright, Mackie’s mother works at Arlington Hardware Store. Her father died when she was in third-grade.

Mackie was in Africa Jan. 21 – April 22 with a group called Adventures in Missions.

“AIM made sure we did not give money or physical things,” Mackie said.

“We saw a lot of tough stuff, the domestic abuse was very sad to see,” she added.

She learned about the program from the internet. Its mission headquarters is based in Georgia. She went with 22 youth ages 18 – 24.

Mackie, 19, graduated from home school two years ago and she has been working side jobs to raise the $5,000 to pay for the trip to Kenya.

She is a certified nurse aid getting training from a private school.

After three weeks in Nairobi, the group traveled to the border of Somalia and stayed in the desert where the temperature was 122 degrees, Mackie said.

The grouped ministered the people by digging a well, cleared brush for a future hospital and spent time with the women, she said.

The final week of the adventure was spent on the beach in Mombasa where they had a chance to debrief, rest on the beach, swim in the Indian Ocean and they even rode a camel.

“It was a long trip by bus from Somalia,” Mackie said.

“It was a 10-hour ride with no potty break and 125 people on a bus made for 60 people,” Mackie said.

In retrospect, the best part of the trip for this young woman, was the people.

“What was neat,” she said, “was the joy and hopefulness on their faces. Even those people in the slums, they were so very welcoming,” Mackie said.

“They loved to have us in their homes. They love making friends.”

Mackie is now looking for a job to raise money for her next adventure. She wants to go on the The World Race, visiting 11 countries in 13 months and it costs $13,000.