11-year-old girl donates money to children in Pakistan

Saturday, November 6, 2004

By Wendy Holmes
Times writer

Corrie Zastrow of Kawkawlin Township was 8 years old when she first read about Christian girls in Pakistan who were forced to serve Muslim families.

In an article in the monthly magazine The Voice of the Martyrs, which she and her family read as part of their daily worship, Corrie, now 11, learned about a girl named Zeba. Zeba was forced to work as a servant for a family who beat and tortured her. Her mother was killed and her sister died a short time later.

Although worlds apart, Corrie says she felt a connection with the young Pakistani girl, and three years later, found a way to help others like her.

The article mentioned that one way girls like Zeba escape servitude is to learn a trade, such as those taught in sewing and literacy schools.

So Corrie approached her mother, Trish, 43, and her father, Cal, 44, and told them that for her July birthday this year she didn't want any presents - she wanted money to buy sewing machines for girls in Pakistan.

"I was proud," Trish Zastrow said of her reaction when Corrie told her of the plan.

It was a little harder to convince family members to go along with the idea, her mother said.

"They wanted to help and give (Corrie) presents," she said, but Corrie was adamant that she did not want any.

Her birthday project raised $237, which will be sent to Voice of the Martyrs and then on to a sewing and literacy school. But Corrie says she doesn't want any credit for her good deed.

When asked what made her want to help girls whose lives are so different from hers, Corrie says simply, "The Lord touched my heart."

Her father says this isn't the first time something like this has happened in the family, whose other members are David, 8; Jim, 7; Eva, 6, and grandmother Doris, 73, who taught Corrie to sew.

"We're just greatly impressed," Cal Zastrow says. "This is just one of the things the kids do. They're coming up with stuff all the time and we support them when they come up with it."

Other projects the Zastrow children, who are home-schooled by their mother, have been involved in include Blankets to Sudan; hosting fund-raisers like garage and bake sales and collecting cans for Kids of Courage, a group that supports children of martyrs; and putting together "action packs" of supplies like sweaters, towels, mittens and soap to be sent by Voice of the Martyrs to areas like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

"It's encouraging to see kids be so unselfish," Cal Zastrow, a political consultant, says.

Corrie says her ambition is to become a missionary nurse in Colombia or North Korea.

Although those can be dangerous areas, Corrie says she is confident "if God wants me to go there, he'll open doors."

Her brothers and sisters have similar plans for the future. David wants to be a missionary pilot, and Eva a missionary pilot or missionary doctor. Jim wants to help people as well, though as a police officer, he says.

© 2004 Bay City Times.