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About Robin & Grahame Byrnes (Directors of RNCH)
Robin and Grahame Byrnes are both teachers where they reside in Newcastle, Australia. Robin hails from Simcoe, Ontario in Canada, while Grahame is a home-grown Novocastrian. They have always been active church members and in their present church they run a weekly home group and participate in local outreaches and community support programs. They spend their free time promoting this work and would highly value your prayers for wisdom as they head it up. They do not receive any financial recompense for their labour of love and invest much of their own funds to help improve these children’s lives. They have always been world travellers … now they travel with a strong purpose.
In the beginning …
Robin’s Nest is the culmination of a series of events and experiences over a long period of time for Grahame and Robin Byrnes. Since childhood, Robin Byrnes has had the desire to make a positive difference to children. Both have been involved in ministering to, and caring for, children through church outreach activities as well as in their duties as school teachers.
In earlier years, Robin enjoyed the invaluable, life-altering experience of teaching school children in Jamaica with her late missionary grandmother, Violet Harris of Springfield, Ontario, Canada.
They were prevented from adopting a Russian child they met on a ministry trip in 2001 because of the Hague Treaty. As a compromise, Robin was inspired to initiate a fundraising event through her school to support the Kharbarovsk Family Group Children’s Homes in Far East Russia, north of Siberia that is now successfully caring for twelve (12) orphaned children. Read this inspirational story: Tanya’s Dream
RNCH is essentially the result of a lifetime of caring for children, a follow-on from Grahame and Robin having their own World Vision sponsored child, rhema words (Psalm 91:4 and Isaiah 54:1-3) and it is the fulfilment of Robin’s personal childhood dream.
The first home in Kenya
Robin’s Nest was first established in Webuye, Kenya after Robin Byrnes met Grace Ongeri – pastor’s wife, nurse and mother of two – at a women’s conference in Newcastle, Australia in 2002. They discovered a common vision to help distressed children. On return to Webuye, Grace shared her vision with her village church and they were convinced that God had brought their hearts together for a reason. Soon Grace’s husband, Pastor Jackson Ongeri, their church and community all shared Grace’s vision. Following much research, discussion and prayer, the first Robin’s Nest was established in Webuye in 2004.
The first home in India
Robin’s Nest India was established under similar circumstances to the Webuye home when, during a Christian outreach to Agra in 2004, Robin and Grahame met Pastor Harry Singh who had been known by the Byrnes’ pastor at that time for more than twenty years.
Harry has been making a difference in his community for many years by running a slums primary school project above his home, opening it up to poverty-affected or abused children of all faiths and teaching young women sewing skills to enable them to live beyond the confines of the caste system to earn a living and provide for their families.
Sharing a similar vision to care for children, Robin’s Nest India was established in 2005.
The big picture
Robin and Grahame aim to grow the work so that more children can have the opportunity to live a quality life with at least some of the opportunities that most Australian children have ... clothing, a content stomach, a safe and caring home life, an education. More importantly, they want them to experience the love of their Heavenly Father since they don’t have an earthly father and to have the opportunity to choose and enjoy eternal life as promised by Jesus Christ.
They do this through advocacy and the promotion of their sponsorship and donation programs.
“In our countries of plenty we are all so ‘blessed to be a blessing’!”
Robin Byrnes
