Heading for Jamaica to answer a call to help

Serenity House and most of the items in it will be auctioned Wednesday night.
By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
CANFIELD -- The owner of Serenity House, a senior citizens home on U.S. Route 62 west of Canfield, is trading it for real serenity -- in the peace of mind that she's going to her life's calling.
That calling will take Karen Brunk, who's owned the house since 1990, from her home here to Jamaica and her "family" -- four teenage boys she's taken in because they have no place else to live.
There, Brunk, a registered nurse, will work in a clinic run by the Mennonite Church to help people who can't easily afford medical care. She'll take care of the boys and likely take in others at her large, four-bedroom home she had built in the mountains near the town of Santa Cruz. She built that home with proceeds from the sale of Homeplace, another group home she owned near Salem. She considers it a community gathering place, where people who need her -- sometimes for transportation, sometimes to help fill out paperwork, can find her. She also holds Bible study groups there every weekend. "There's a constant stream of activity."
She also wants to provide a place for children who don't make the long trip down from the mountain to school to get an education. If children have no shoes or if their hair isn't cut right, schools will turn them away, she said. She wants a place where they can go, even barefoot, to learn.
Empty house
So the house on Route 62 with the white-column pillars sits empty of the 16 residents who, until about a month ago, called it home. They have gone to other nursing homes or assisted-living facilities, and now it's just Brunk and her dog who stay in the house. She has a private home next door. But she stays, she says, because it gives her a chance to say goodbye to the house she loves and will miss.
The 4,600-square-foot Serenity House will be auctioned by Russ Kiko Associates on Wednesday, along with most of the furniture and appliances inside it. The auction, which begins at 5 p.m., also includes Brunk's minivan.
Once the home is sold and her affairs are settled, she will leave for Jamaica again, at the end of June.
Longtime goal
It's a trip she's been making since 1987, when she went with a medical team to give free care to people who are living in poverty. She had been encouraged to go by an aunt and uncle who were missionaries there in the 1950s, and had talked much about it.
It was during a subsequent trip four years ago, she said, that she found her calling and discovered something she'd never known about herself -- she really loves kids.
At the clinic she met 10-year-old Mickey, a boy who had been caring for his blind grandmother since he was 5. In her four-wheel-drive vehicle, to the top of a mountain, "up this terrible road," she would visit Mickey and his grandmother at their home.
As the grandmother's health began to fail, she asked Brunk to take care of Mickey when she died.
That's how Mickey, whose mother lives in England and says she may send for him one day, came to live with Brunk. Other boys in need soon followed.
Children are born "accidentally" in Jamaica, she said, and often are shifted around between family members because there isn't enough money to keep them.
Brunk, 55, never had children of her own, and now, she says, people she knows are amused at the thought of her taking care of four teenage boys.
But she loves it. "I've never been more fulfilled or at peace than I am now."
They do chores at her house, she said, including learning to be responsible by tending goats. There is always laundry to do, she said, because in Jamaica, people do it by hand.
With electricity at her home, she could have a washer and dryer, she acknowledged. But she doesn't want the boys to get used to amenities they won't have when they are eventually on their own in the community.
The boys don't watch TV. There isn't much in the way of good television stations there, she said. But she does allow them to watch "good videos" on Friday evenings.
When she takes in more boys who need a place to stay, she'll build a few more rooms or convert a garage for more living space.
"People have advised me, let it grow," she said. "Respond to the need. So I didn't go in with a grand plan."
While she is in Ohio, a young Jamaican couple live at her house and take care of the boys, who are all in school and responding well to the stability of having a home, she said.
While she's in Jamaica, a young couple also live in her home next to Serenity House.
What she will leave
She has a day job here working at a prison, and the job allows her flexibility to travel to Jamaica. But she hopes that within three years she will be able to stay there permanently.
She'll be leaving family here, including her mother, who is 89, and two brothers and two sisters. And she will miss them.
But, she says, she believes God spoke to her four years ago when she assisted at a medical team's clinic in the Jamaican town of Black River.
She said 2,000 people showed up to receive care, and were crowded outside the fence.
"I thought, this must have been what it was like when Jesus was on earth and people came to be healed by him," she said. "I said, 'Jesus, I wish you were here.' And he said to me, 'Karen, I am here. My hands are at the end of your own arms.'"
That episode was a turning point for her, she said. It was then, she said, that she knew her visits to Jamaica were much more than just an adventure.