During her volunteer time in Kenya, Cinco also spent some time getting to know and helping younger African children.

While still in her early 20s, Jeannine Cinco was living a life most young people would find both fun and fulfilling. A graduate of Southeast Missouri State University, she was living overseas while working as a recreational director for the United States Navy on bases in Italy and Bahrain.

Cinco said she thoroughly enjoyed her work, yet felt something wasn't right.

"It's all been a journey that God has led me on," she says. "After a while I began to ask myself, ‘How am I loving my neighbor? Am I doing what God is calling me to do?' So I quit my job and came back here."

She volunteered in St. Louis for a year before coming across some on-line material about Catholic Relief Services (CRS).

"I had heard a lot about Catholic Relief Services during the tsunami. I was looking for jobs for a friend, but one thing led to another and I ended up volunteering for them," she says "So, once again Jesus was working in my life.

"When I got involved with CRS, I was sent to Kenya," she says explaining that her two-year volunteer period included 18 months overseas and six months in the states. During her time in Africa, she worked at Cardinal Maurice Otunga Girls Empowerment Center, teaching, organizing events and mentoring young women.

"Basically, I lived with two nuns and 70 disadvantaged young women ages 16 to 20," she says. "I was the only Westerner there."

Jeannine Cinco (left) poses with some of her students at Cardinal Maurice Otunga Empowerment Center. She is a Catholic Relief Services volunteer who served in Kenya for 18 months and is now speaking to groups in the Springfield diocese.

Initially, Cinco's parents were apprehensive about her chosen path. While they had visited her while she was in Italy, they had no desire to travel to Africa. Eventually her parents, Jerry and Julie Cinco, did make the trip and enjoyed their visit. Worldwide travel and work seems to run in Cinco's family as her only sister, Jessica Cinco, teaches English as a second language at a university in South Korea.

 Cinco says she will forever remember getting off the plane in Africa. She was acquainted with no one and knew nothing of the language spoken there, or of the customs.

"I didn't know a single word of Swahili," she says. "I didn't even know how to say ‘please' or ‘thank you.' I prayed I'd find someone there to meet me, holding a sign or something."

Cinco, who also studied German in college, eventually became fluent in Swahili.

Cinco's first 16 months in Kenya were happy ones. She thrived in her work and loved the people and their customs. However, after a "stolen election," war broke out. The election brought violence and unrest, Cinco explains. "It wasn't political, it was tribal."

Since that election 1,000 people have died and 300,000 have lost their homes. CRS and other religious groups are trying to get people back into their homes, Cinco says. Leaving knowing people still needed help was difficult, she adds.

Of course, after living with the Kenyans for 18 months, Cinco developed many friendships. She occasionally hears from her good friend Faith, who was one of the young women she mentored. "Faith and another woman started a small bakery business in Kenya. I get e-mails from her and her business partner. She is doing OK and her business is going well," Cinco says. "She is a hard worker and a wonderful person."

In these, her final months with CRS, Cinco spends about half of her workweek in St. Louis and the other half in the Springfield diocese, where she is available as a speaker through the diocesan Office for the Missions. Her target audience includes people of all ages who are interested in peace and justice, foreign missions, the Universal Church and of course, Catholic Relief Services. She will speak before and after Masses, at parish council meetings, JustFaith group meetings, youth ministry gatherings, and to senior groups. This spring, she spoke to several schools.

 "I'll be here until August and I am looking for anybody who wants to listen," Cinco said. To contact her, call (217) 698-8500, ext. 126 or e-mail her at  .

Cinco says she misses Kenya. At the Catholic Pastoral Center in Springfield, her desk is covered with a colorful African cloth called a kanga. When she gives presentations for CRS she often wears African dress.

"When I talk with kids, I try to intertwine the two great commandments: Love your God with all your heart, soul and mind and then after that, love your neighbor as yourself," Cinco says. "I ask them, ‘Who is your neighbor?' I tell them that God was calling me to do something more, so I volunteered with Catholic Relief Services and they sent me to Kenya. I tell them what I found when I went to Africa." For example, she often explains that the amount of money that Europeans and Americans spend a year on pet food could take care of the health care needs of the world's poorest countries. "So, am I encouraging you not to have a pet? No! I'm encouraging you to think about how much time you spend with that animal, taking care of it, buying things for it and snuggling with it in front of the TV," she says. "Now think about how much time you spend loving your neighbors and thinking of your neighbors.

"It doesn't matter if your neighbor is your friend or if you are thinking of someone who lives in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The people there are still your neighbor," she says. "So many people don't know and just don't care, and that's not what Jesus is calling us to do."

Cinco is currently living in Raymond and uses a rental car to get around. She is paid a small living stipend, but says she has already learned to live simply. "Coming back here was harder for me than going to Kenya. It is just hard to get back into this culture," she says, adding that the money Americans spend in this country reminds her of how far those dollars would go in Kenya.

Cinco's two-year volunteer period with CRS ends in a few months. Then she hopes to get her master's degree to study peace and conflict transformation. "At least, that's the plan for right now. I'm looking for a grant or a scholarship and I would like to go back to school in August."