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[00:00:00] Morgan Jones Pearson: Ore Kaffo was born in South London to Nigerian parents who had come to England seeking educational opportunities. As they sought for a better life for their family, Ore became one of 70, 000 West African children who were placed unofficially in the foster care of white British families. As a result, Kaffo was raised for the first seven years of her life by a Scottish father and an English mother, but that all changed when her birth mother abducted her from her foster family and she was taken back to Nigeria.

On today's episode, Ore shares the unique perspective this experience combined with her conversion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints as a young adult have given her. Ore Kaffo is a widow, a mother of two daughters, and a public speaker. She is the author of a book, Knocked for Six, and in 2023, she was part of a documentary titled White Nanny, Black Child, which is now available on Netflix in the UK.

This is All In, an LDS Living podcast where we ask the question, what does it really mean to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ? I'm Morgan Pearson, and I am so I am so honored to have Ore Coffo on the line with me today. Ore, welcome. Thank you very much for having me. Well, this interview has been a long time coming Ore, and I am so excited to have the chance to talk with you.

I have revisited your story multiple times. The first time someone sent it to me and said, you need to interview this woman. She's amazing. And so I looked you up and read about your story. Then, as of this morning, I had the chance to watch the documentary that you were a part of, White Nanny, Black Child, which has won all kinds of awards, um, over in the UK.

And I just feel like I have so much to learn from you, so I'm excited to do that today. But I want to start The documentary that you were a part of as well as the book that you wrote, Not for Six, tells your story, Ore, which is that you were one of 70, 000 African children who upon coming to the UK were placed in foster care with white families.

And the documentary tells this story of how you were kind of brought together with a group Um, a small group of people who had all had the same shared experience and I wanted to start by By asking you what did it feel like to kind of share those experiences? And to realize that like some of the things about your experience were the same as others some were different And how was that kind of a healing experience for you?

[00:03:02] Ore Kaffo: So prior to being on the documentary, White Nanny, Black Child, I had started to reflect on my childhood because I do quite a lot of work with young people and young adults. So from 12 up to 30, 35 years old as part of my profession. And so I felt that sharing a story of maybe feeling hopeless at some point in your life and then feeling, getting hopeful was a powerful thing to share to help them build confidence and self esteem.

And so I'd started to share my story. What was interesting about being part of the documentary was that I was made of how many more people like myself had been affected by this practice, which is called farming. So it's an unregulated form of fostering where there are no social workers involved, no government regulations in place, no vetting done.

And so it's interesting to be in a space with eight other people who'd had similar experiences, of course, with different outcomes, because they were unique. journeys, but it was a safe space and also seeing how being placed in a similar situation and how different we all were was quite, I guess, inspiring for me, but it was lovely to talk about people who got it because it's hard for somebody who is black, who hasn't lived in a white home to understand that connection between people such as myself.

And my white family and friends.

[00:04:39] Morgan Jones Pearson: I, I can only imagine Ore, to your point, like I can't, I can't relate to that. I wanted to ask you or a, for those that are not familiar, because I obviously, you know, try to tee off the episode, um, in the beginning, but I wanted to ask for those that are not familiar with your story.

Can you tell people just kind of a little synopsis of what you were. Uh, journey from the age of three months to then kind of adolescence was like. Okay, so I'll be as brief as I possibly can. Don't, don't worry, talk as much as you want. Okay. I love hearing your voice, so you can talk as much as you want.

[00:05:20] Ore Kaffo: Oh, that's very kind. My, my mother and father are Nigerians, and so that's West Africa, and they came to England, um, to, to study and to improve their, their prospects in terms of, of their work mobility. And when they came to England, they had to work as well to support their education. Now, back in Africa, there's a family network, extended family is a huge part of how Africans live now arriving in England.

They lost that network. And they didn't even have friends. And so, what they decided to do as a people, I don't know who came up with this idea, was to find British families who would be willing to take in their children as babies mostly, to look after them while they got on with their studying and working at the same time.

And they would pay them a token fee for that. And what they then did with me, as with the others, was that they would take a photograph of their baby. So my photograph was taken. It's then placed in the newspapers or in a local advert for a family to show interest and say, okay, you know, we, you know, we, we, we've answered your advert and we would like to be the ones who look after the baby.

So it was like a business transaction. We were, it was almost like being a commodity. and being placed up for sale. Although the intention of our parents really was to find us appropriate childcare. So their intention was noble, but we still were a piece of property being advertised in newspapers. So I got a wonderful family and my, my father was Scottish and my mother was English and they couldn't have children of their own.

And so I went into a home where they really, really wanted a baby at the age of three months and they loved me. I had a wonderful life with my foster parents who at the time lived in Kent in England. And when I was just about turning seven, my mother invited, my birth mother invited my foster mom to London for a Christmas event and asked her to bring me along.

And it was at this event that my birth mother kidnapped me because she wanted me back and didn't think that my foster parents would be prepared to hand me over after seven years of. having had me as their child. Now, my mother had always kept in touch. She would visit every two weeks. And so I knew her, she was no stranger to me when she took me, but I didn't know her as my mother.

She wasn't the person I recognized as my mom. So being taken from my mom and dad was quite traumatic for me. But then I was also taken to Nigeria two weeks after the abduction, once she was able to get my paperwork in place. And I felt like we were on the run because we were staying at different places.

Every two days we were changing location. And I knew that something was wrong at that point. But as a, you know, a six year old, 10 months old child, so almost seven years old, I didn't quite know how to navigate the situation or ask questions. And to be honest, I didn't think anything was suspect until I actually arrived in Africa.

Now, being in Africa, a totally different culture, so I've had two shocks, I've been separated from my mum and dad, I'm now in a totally different environment, and I don't know anyone, and I struggled with that. My language, the language was different, they did speak English, but they also spoke a second language, which I did not understand.

I had an accent, and so I stood out. And that then led to name calling and, and body shaming. And so I grew up in this environment being put down constantly, being called names, never feeling like I belonged. And it was strange because I'm a black child living in an African country, surrounded by black people, but still feeling alone and feeling like a minority.

And yet I was raised in Maidstone for seven years, where I was one of three Black children in my primary school, and never once felt like an outsider. And so that's taught me a lesson about color of the skin. It only matters when people decide it's going to matter. But we are all brothers and sisters. We are all human beings.

And I grew up like that up to seven. And then once I got to Africa, I started to realize that there could be difference. based on the color of your skin. They, they told me I was too dark to be a beautiful African child. So that was another thing I started to recognize that, oh, there's something called color of the skin and it does matter.

It does have impact. And so by the time I was 14 years old, I had very low self esteem. I used to pray to God. Could you please make me anybody else? Anybody else but me will do. I just don't want to be me anymore. I felt like the ugly duckling of my own story, always trying so hard to fit in. And there were some people who were kind to me.

Don't get me wrong. It wasn't all gloom. There were wonderful things about having an African experience, but that sense of belonging that I really yearned for, I just couldn't quite get it. And then I returned to England when I was 18 years old, and when I was 20 years old, I met the missionaries. So that's sort of like my young life, um, summarized into a few minutes.

[00:10:39] Morgan Jones Pearson: You are so good at telling your story. I admire that ability so much. I want to back up before we get to the missionaries because I want to hear that whole story. story. That's my, my husband, we were watching the documentary and he said, how did she come in contact with the church? And I was like, I have no idea.

I'm excited to ask. But before we get there, I wanted to ask a couple of follow up questions. One, when your mom would come visit your birth mother, when she would come visit, what did you understand her to, did you understand her to be just a friend of your foster family?

[00:11:14] Ore Kaffo: I, they tried to explain to me that I'm sure they did, that she was probably a second mom because I wouldn't probably have grasped that as a child.

My birth mother tells me that sometimes I would call her Auntie Vicky because her name's Victoria. So, but when she would visit, because she's an adult, she would spend her time with my foster parents. I mean, she would engage with me, of course, but it was mostly adults having a conversation. She's checking in for my welfare.

My biological father would also visit. So in my head, I see her as connected to them more than to me, because I'm a child. I'm playing with my toys. I'm out in the garden. She's there. She's present. Right. But the connection of a mother to a child and her voice is actually on the documentary where she says that, you know, I gave my, my child to, to foster parents, but I regret it.

And that if she had to go back, she wouldn't have given her child to a foster parents, no matter how good they were, because she felt that as a mother, there were some holes that she still has in her life where a mother should have fulfilled a certain role in her child's life. So even she felt that. And, and so going with her when she took me from the party, she, she told me that she had an arrangement with my foster mom because they were going to take me to Barbados to watch a Michael Jackson concert for Christmas and that I needed to have my passport done in London.

And I believed it because I knew her. And I remember asking her, did you ask permission from my mummy before you take me? And she said yes. Clearly, I now know that's a lie. So I trusted her and went with her because I knew her. If she had told me that she's taken me because I'm her child and we're going somewhere, I would have refused to go.

And she knew that.

[00:13:07] Morgan Jones Pearson: Right. Let me ask you this, Ore. In the documentary, you mentioned that you're, you learned later in life through reading journals and, uh, talking to your birth parents that this was actually very hard on them and that they tried really hard to vet, that they met with multiple couples or, uh, reviewed a lot of different couples before choosing the foster family that you had, but you didn't know that for a long time.

Tell me a little bit about that.

[00:13:36] Ore Kaffo: So in 2020, during the lockdowns, when we had the pandemic, I decided to write my story because I had the time. We're all locked in. And when I was writing my book, I called my mom and I said, I know mom, you've documented a lot about the past because it hurt you. Could I have your manuscript?

I want to see what actually happened. So I read through her manuscript. And that's when I realized how much effort she had gone to to find the right fit for me. How she didn't want to give me to foster care, to a foster parent. She'd explored all other options but none of them she felt were conducive to a baby.

Waking a baby up at 4am in the cold winter. take them to, you know, to a daycare center. She felt wasn't right for a child. She wanted me to, they wanted me to be settled in a home. And so they, they extensively interviewed and felt that yes, my, my foster parents were the right ones and they were correct. As far as I'm concerned, it was one of the best decisions they could ever have made for me.

I was a happy baby and a happy child in their care. But of course, my mother and father were, had a sense of loss. What felt that in order for them to achieve the purpose of coming to England, which was to study, and they needed to work to support the education, they felt that they had no choice.

[00:14:58] Morgan Jones Pearson: Right. And then I loved, there's this very touching, I feel like, uh, part of the documentary where you pass around a picture of you and your foster father and you say, this is a picture of the first man I ever loved.

And you share three things that your foster father shared. Yeah. Um, and I wondered if you could kind of share those with listeners and why they impacted your life so much.

[00:15:29] Ore Kaffo: Okay. I tend to get a bit emotional when I think about my foster dad because he, he meant a lot to me. And he was like a hero. For anyone who knows a Scottish man, they've got this sense of strength.

And having a dad like that made me feel like I was protected by some kind of Superman. And so anything he had to say to me meant a lot. So one of the things that as a child I felt because of what he would say to me was that being black was a gift. That I was a fortunate child to have brown skin. And he said that made me a princess.

So I loved the colour of my skin from a very, very early age. And, and what does that mean for me today? I never go into a space, I never think that my colour is a disadvantage. I never do. I have always embraced the fact that I'm a brown human being. I feel that it's a gift from God. I enjoy being black. I don't see that there's a them and us.

I'm not threatened by white people. I'm not threatened by any culture because I feel that the color of the skin is just that. the color of your skin. I just felt as a child that I was fortunate to get this color. So my dad did that for me. One of the other things that he, he would constantly drill into me, not drill, but would say to me is that whatever I wanted to be, he would support that.

So any dream that I had, he would be there beside me, behind me to ensure that it happens. And then the third thing was that anything was possible for me if I was prepared to put the effort in. So if I worked at things, if I tried, that I should believe that it is possible. And growing up, and I've been through quite a lot of things that have been hard.

really, really hard things. And I may mention it when we talk about my mission, because going on a mission for me was a hard thing. But because of those three things that he instilled in me, I thought to myself, you know what, my dad has said, whatever I want to do is possible, but I need to do my part. And so do your part.

And now that I have the gospel, if it's Heavenly Father's will, then it will, it will materialize for me. If it isn't His will, well, then I would have learned something along that journey. But at least try, you must, or make an attempt, or try and knock on a door. I'm not particularly good at door knocking, I get tired after a while, but I still try and knock on a few before I give up.

[00:18:08] Morgan Jones Pearson: Door knocking is not particularly fun for anyone, I don't think, but I want to now kind of shift to tell me about how you were introduced to missionaries or how you met the missionaries.

[00:18:22] Ore Kaffo: The missionaries found me tracting. I don't know if that word is still used in the missionary world today, but they found me tracting.

They were knocking on doors again. They were knocking and they happened to knock on my door. Oh, this is cool. A number of many, many years ago when they knocked on my door, it was in the winter in, in, in England and they were wearing these trench coats and they looked official. So I thought that they were from maybe the government or, and so I was shocked when I opened the door, you know, so I was a little bit scared.

And then when they said, Oh, we're missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. To be honest, I did not hear that, that phrase in my head. All I heard was we're not from the government. We're not from any, any place that's, that's come to do something scary. So when they said, may we come in and have a word?

I don't know why I responded by saying, yeah, that's okay. So they came in and they started to share the first discussion with me. And in my head, I'm like, I'm not interested. I really, I'm not, I'm not interested. I just wanted, I just. invited you in because I was relieved. I didn't say this to them. I was just being polite and I was listening.

Now, what was interesting is a few months prior to that, I was actually looking for a church to go to. I thought, Oh, it's high time that I started to actually go to church regularly. I believed in God, but I wasn't a church goer. And I was thinking maybe I might join the Catholic church around the corner.

Maybe that's what I'm going to do. And then I just left the thought. I didn't really look into it any more than that. any more than that. And then when they knocked on the door and they started teaching me, I thought, you know, later on when I reflect, I think you were looking for a church. Heavenly Father sent you the missionaries.

And once they came, you weren't interesting. I mean, really? So come on. Yeah. And I just wanted to get rid of them. And they eventually left. And when they were leaving, they said, could we come back and see you again? And I was thinking No, in my head, but I was so polite. English people tend to be polite. So I said, okay, anyway, the mission is kept on coming 10 months.

They were coming new companionships of forming. They kept coming. I would not accept an invitation to go to church on a Sunday. I just wouldn't. And then one day I met this missionary and there was just something about him that really reached me. It makes me a really big believer that some missionaries are sent to find some people, or some of us in this world in the pre existence had said, I promise to come and find you.

It was that kind of a feeling I had with him. And when he taught me, I heard. Not just heard. I mean, I heard, and I remember him teaching and his companion, and I'll tell you their names shortly. I remember them teaching me the plan of salvation, and something about that really hit me hard. And when they invited me to, to come to church, the Sunday after, I said yes.

The first time in 10 years, I said yes. So I attended church the Sunday after, and I was baptized after that.

[00:21:36] Morgan Jones Pearson: Okay, just to clarify, 10 months or 10 years? No, 10 months of, yeah, 10 months of constant,

[00:21:42] Ore Kaffo: constant knocking on my door, visiting, having discussions, and yeah.

[00:21:47] Morgan Jones Pearson: And Ore, so you, you ended up getting baptized and then like you said earlier, you served a mission and you served your mission in England.

Is that right?

[00:21:56] Ore Kaffo: In the England Leeds mission.

[00:21:59] Morgan Jones Pearson: Okay. How did you kind of reach the decision to serve a mission and how long was that after you were baptized?

[00:22:07] Ore Kaffo: So one of the missionaries, so the missionaries who, I mean, I knew so many missionaries and I really would like to give all of them credit for getting me here, but over time I forgot their names and because I wasn't interested, I didn't take any note.

But there was Elder Levitt and Elder Covey. Now Elder Covey was, or is the son of Stephen R. Covey, who a lot of people in America know, and even in England. I mean, a lot of business modules are based on Stephen R. Covey's work. And his son, David Covey, kept in touch. After he finished his mission, and I got to meet his mom, I got to meet members of the family, and I just, he was, he just inspired me, and I wanted to be like him.

We were the same age at the time, and I just wanted to be like him, and I wanted him to be proud of who he had baptized. So I had, submission at the back of my mind, but I left it. I thought sometime in the future, it'll happen. I also thought that good things don't happen to me because of, from the moment I was kidnapped, it was one bad thing after another, after another, that would keep on happening.

And I always felt like, a person who was not designed for wonderful things to happen to me in my life. So when I was thinking about the mission, I thought it's never going to happen because good things don't happen to me. And then I decided to go for my patriarchal blessing. And I remember sitting there thinking, please don't say I should go on a mission.

Please don't say we go because my mom's not going to like it. And my patriarchal blessing said exactly that. You know, and so I accepted the Lord's will. And so this was about a year and a half after joining the church. So by two years into the church, I was on my mission. Wow. And yeah, and that, and that was the, the moment that my life changed even for the better, but my mom opposed it.

She said, no, she wasn't a member. She said, if you go on a mission, I'm going to disown you. And my mom and I, up to that point, my birth mom, We had never fallen out. Fallen out in England means we never had a row. I never disagreed with her. We got along really well. I respected her as a person. It took me a while to accept she was my real mom.

But once I got there, I started to see the beauty in her as a human being and I never wanted to let her down. But I was saying to her, if you're going to make me choose between you and Heavenly Father, unfortunately you will not win this one. I said, I have to go and serve. The Lord has called me to serve and I'm going to go.

It's one of the hardest things I've ever had to experience because living in a household where your family's not proud of you serving a mission is hard. So I had to find that validation in my ward. My state president was amazing. Ward members were amazing. Um, they did an article of me in the Ensign back then and I felt supported by the members of the church.

So I went and served a mission and by the time I was done, my mother was really proud of me. She came to get me from the mission field. I'm like, I'm like, nothing's ever easy with you.

[00:25:18] Morgan Jones Pearson: Um, Ore, you mentioned earlier that your mission was really hard. I think that that's an important thing. Sometimes when I'm talking to people, perspective missionaries, I'll just say, you know, like, It's important to know that missions are hard, and I think sometimes in the telling of all the really spiritual experiences and all of the great moments that happen as a missionary, we tend to leave that out and then people get out in the mission field and they're like, Oh my goodness, like, what did I sign up for?

Um, tell me a little bit about what made your particular mission hard once you got out in the field?

[00:25:59] Ore Kaffo: See, hard is a very, I don't know what, how to, what to say. Hard can mean so many different things. The hardest part for me was actually going on my mission with all the, you know, there was a tension in the air at home.

Right. And that was hard for me to, to bear, hard for me to bear. It was hard for me to go to university. You know, it was hard for me to be, to be kidnapped. Lots of things we do in life can be hard or should we say challenging. But what was hard on my mission was the fact that people, a lot of people were not receptive to, to, to the message.

It was up north in England. The weather was particularly cold compared to London. Even though I was in England, the culture was very, very different. I was a minority, but it didn't bother me. So a lot of people that weren't used to seeing people of color back then, we're going back a couple of decades now.

And it's, it's, it's, it's interesting because missions are an up and down kind of experience. You have a lot of highs on a mission. a lot of highs and you do have also the lows as well. And so I would say in terms of hardship, the hard parts of the mission, like tracting was not one of my favorite things to do, but we did it.

Being rejected. Making appointments and showing up and the person not actually being there. Teaching somebody for such a long time and they seem that they're going to accept the gospel and at the last minute a family member says something and they withdraw. Those kind of things make a mission hard because you're, you've sacrificed a lot and you're hoping for an outcome.

But the job of a missionary isn't to baptize, it is to teach and invite. I wish I'd known, I knew it to a certain extent then because our mission president would say we were taught in the MTC, but I was young, I was in my early twenties, and in my head I'm thinking, no, if somebody's not going into the water of baptism, I haven't quite done the job.

But now I recognize. that teaching and inviting is the effort that we are required to put in. The spirit does the rest and then the person then has the freedom to accept. My husband at the moment is not a member of the church. We met while we were filming the documentary, so he's not a member of the church.

The spirit whispered to me that he was the one. He's still not a member of the church. He goes to church with me every Sunday. My job is to be a good example to him, to teach where possible and invite. And then I wait for the Spirit and the Lord to do the rest, and for then, for Him to then decide for Himself what He wants to do.

And I, I'm grateful for my mission for that.

[00:28:55] Morgan Jones Pearson: So well said. I want to now kind of back up just a little bit to when you were in your early twenties, you were reunited with your foster parents and, um, I understand that you thought that they had moved your birth mother had told you like that they had moved.

And so you went back to the home that you were raised in and your intention. You said you had like a whole script in your head of what you were going to say. You go to knock on the door and when the door opens, it's your foster father who you've already, you know, Told us was amazing. Tell me a little bit about that interaction and the difference that that made in your life.

[00:29:47] Ore Kaffo: Gosh, I remember I remember walking to the door thinking because now remember now I'm aware of color. Now I'm aware that it means something to some people. So I'm now going to go and knock on the door in Maidstone in Kent, which is predominantly white, which doesn't bother me at all, but which I'm thinking some random black woman's going to knock on my door, this stranger's going to open the door to think, Oh!

Who's this? So I have this feeling. I'm not going to say good afternoon. I'm really sorry to trouble you. But when I was a little girl, I used to live in this property and I just wondered if you happen to have a forwarding address for, you know, the previous occupants or if you happen to know where they may be, that kind of thing.

So I'd had that spiel. So I'm now knocking on the door. The door eventually opens and it's my step, sorry, it's my foster dad. I had been told they'd moved and I guess that was in order for me not to keep in touch with them. That's probably why I was told that. So he's now there and I'm, and I'm like, cause I don't know now what to say.

I didn't have a spiel prepared for him. And, but before I could say anything, he just says my name. I'm like, he recognizes me. And he said, no, you haven't changed. And he invites me in. And of course I'm in shock because I didn't really expect to be reunited with him. I didn't think it was ever going to happen, but I thought, let me try something.

He had taught me as well. Let me at least try. Let me knock on the door. I remember the address. I'll knock on the door. And by trying, I got an outcome and he took me in, he brought out pictures, the picture that you said you saw, he gave that to me and he talked about that night, what had happened, how my mum had come home, that she, you know, she'd had to be sedated for a while for her to calm down and that he had brought me a coat that night that I'd gone to this party in London.

And of course it was, it was very overwhelming for me. I mean, I cried all the way back to, to London on the train. I couldn't, I couldn't help it. I was sobbing all the way publicly all the way home because I was so overcome with emotion. And from then on, we, we came back together as a family. They never accepted the gospel.

They had never been religious anyway, so that's sort of like, that was the downside to everything. But they, they respected me. They told me that there was a church up the road, which now happens to be my stake center. So yeah. And so, so they respected my choice to, to have a faith, but they, they, I never even got any names off them to be able to help them with their family history or anything like that.

But my, my first born daughter took her first steps. in their home. So neat. So that was wonderful. Again, another manifestation of how Heavenly Father works and how, you know, sooner or later we get what we deserve.

[00:32:55] Morgan Jones Pearson: Yeah. I think that you are so inspiring or a, and one of the reasons, one of the things that you said as I was preparing for this interview, uh, You said that you were finally able after kind of years of trying to reconcile this situation and what had happened to you once you were back in Nigeria, you said you were finally able to put aside any negative feelings.

About this situation when you realize that everyone in the story was a victim, there were no heroes and no villains in your story, just victims, because you as a child had been loved so much. And I think that being able to reach that and come to that place of kind of healing, which I'm sure. you know, doesn't happen in an instant.

But I think that that is so incredible and it feels to me like something that can only be reached through the atonement of Jesus Christ, the enabling power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. So tell me a little bit about kind of your journey to, to find healing and to recognize that you could continue to have a relationship with your birth mom and your foster family and all of that could be a part of who you are.

[00:34:17] Ore Kaffo: And one of my favorite scriptures is found in 2 Nephi, and I think most people would recognize it, 2 Nephi 2, 25, which is Adam fell that men might be, and that men are, that they might have joy, which links back to what you were saying about survival. That, you know, we weren't born just to exist, just to survive, we were born to thrive, we were born to grow, to become more like Christ, become more like God.

And. And as I've gone through this process, because I used to feel like a victim growing up, I thought, why, why is it me that they kidnapped? Why is it me? Everyone's making fun of why is it me? That is this? Why is it me? That is fat? Why is it me? That is that? And I spent a lot of time saying, why is it me?

I'm thinking that I was a victim. Now, When I accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ, and over time, of course, you mature in the gospel, you study your scriptures, you serve a mission, you have callings, you really start to recognize that each human being, number one, matters. to God. Each one matters. Each one is valuable.

The only difference, the only thing that would make me discriminate with human beings is good human beings, bad human beings. And sometimes it's not even for us to judge. So every human being matters. And I wanted to give everyone around me the opportunity to, how can I, what's the word? I wanted to be generous in my thoughts of others.

That if I was my mom and somebody wanted to take my child, what would I be like? If I was my foster parents and somebody had given me a child when they were three months old, I still have them till they're seven years old. I'm going to think that that's my child now. You can't have her. Um, if I was my mom and dad back then, would I want to come to England to get a better education?

Of course I would. If I wasn't wealthy, what would I then have to do? I'd have to work. So I started to put myself in other people's shoes. And then I started to look at my life as well to think, actually, if I stopped to think I have had an interesting life, I had survived everything, how could I, why does it just have to be about survival that, oh, I survived my husband's death.

I survived being, you know, I survived Nigeria. I survived the name calling. And I thought, no, it has to mean more than that. In the documentary, I said, you know, all of this stuff has to culminate in something. After my husband died, I lost my home. I lost 60, 000 that I had eagerly invested in something because I wanted a second income.

I've been through so much. And sometimes I do stop and think that, why am I being challenged so much? And my, my husband, my, my new husband said to me two days ago, she said, he said, all right. Heavenly Father sees something in you, you must be important to him, and the adversary is trying to stop that. The adversary knows that if you're happy, if you're functioning, if you're being productive, you will change lives.

And he's trying to get in your way. And, and so, in terms of this coming to peace, with, with, with who I am. I, I compare myself to a princess. Like my foster dad said, I am a princess. I was born to, you know, you know, into a lovely place with my foster parents. Then the villain came along and kidnapped me. And then at the end of the day, I lived happily ever after, so to speak.

My mom was a victim in all of this, the circumstances and my dad. made them give me up. My foster parents were victims of the circumstance. It was a shame that a child had to get hurt because unfortunately I was hurt more than all of them. I was scared. I was a seven year old, lost my mom. It's a scary thing for a child to think that I'm not going to see my mommy and daddy again.

I cannot explain what that feels like unless the child has been kidnapped or has been placed in a foster care after they're seven years old. Being without your mom and dad makes you feel unsafe. And I didn't want my children to feel unsafe when their father died. So again, playing back into my experiences, that it's my job to protect them, to make them feel safe.

And so I am grateful for all of these experiences in, in, in the sense of number one, it's made me interesting. It's given me an opportunity to write a book. I'm now, I've been in a doc, I'm in a documentary, which is on Netflix. And these were not things that I planned. You know, one thing just led to another.

And I guess my Heavenly Father meant for this to be my journey. And that's the thing that I'd like to put out there to anyone who's listening. Is that life can be challenging and good things do happen, but sorry, bad things do happen to good people. But I really, really believe that our Heavenly Father.

is there in the story because he sees the future. He knows more than we all know. And in order for us to achieve his purposes, we need to be sanctified in a way, you know, we need to be burned by fire, so to speak, and being burned by fire is not fun. And so these challenges and trials, they're part of the sanctification process.

I don't claim to be a righteous member of the church. I claim to be one who's just trying. I'm a human being. I like to keep things real, but, you know, I am trying to do the right thing every day and to love my fellow man. And Heavenly Father only asks that we put our hearts on the altar. Put your heart on the altar.

Do the best you can with that heart and with your fellow man. And then our Heavenly Father, you know, He's present in all of our stories.

[00:40:10] Morgan Jones Pearson: I think that we all have so much that we could learn from Your experience and also your approach to it. I think that that journey of healing and acceptance is One that you have put in a lot of work to arrive at and we all have to put in work to To work through the things that we've been through but I do think that we can learn from the experiences of others And so orey, I so appreciate you being willing to share your experience before we Before we get to our last question, I just have one more question that I wanted to ask you.

It struck me that you have talked a lot about identity and that identity is something that you struggled with for a long time. Which makes sense. Like you said, you, you know, grew up in an environment where you look different than everyone else, but you felt happy and joyful and like you fit in. And then you went back to Nigeria and you didn't feel like you fit in and it made me think of President Nelson's recent teachings about identity and about how the most important identity that we have is as a child of God.

And I. I have thought about that so much. I think it's So, I don't think we can overstate the importance of understanding one's identity and letting that drive the decisions that we make. But I wonder for you, having gone through what you've been through and having worked through all of that, why would you say that, that President Nelson's teachings about identity have been pivotal and important?

[00:41:55] Ore Kaffo: Gosh, this identity, and it's really interesting. We talk about identity a lot in Britain. We talk about identity a lot because Britain, I feel, is a warm, welcoming place for every form of identities, not just race or colour. Sometimes, you know, there's gender, there's sexual orientation, there are all sorts of things, disabilities, special needs, all of those things that are very important in Britain.

So, identity as human beings. it's a combination of so so many many many different things but the one thing that is a fact and is a truth is that we are all children of God we just all are regardless of how we identify and that is my How can I put it? That is my core identification, if anyone asked me, but in Britain we're not so religious, so you can't go about saying I'm a child of God, that's my identity.

But in terms of the world's identity, I've decided that, well, I can choose what my identity is. I don't need my culture or my community or society to give me a tag. But ultimately, I am a child of God. And when we are a child of God, the truth is everything else doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if somebody's from Zimbabwe or from Tokyo or from Pakistan or from America.

If we all identify as children of God, then we are one people.

[00:43:29] Morgan Jones Pearson: That's beautiful. I completely agree. And I think that that message is is so important in today's world where it feels like everything is trying to, to define us and place divisions between us. Ore, my last question for you is what does it mean to you to be all in the gospel of Jesus Christ?

[00:43:53] Ore Kaffo: Well, I'm an all or nothing kind of person anyway. You put me on a diet, I either do it right or I don't do it at all. Anything that is important to us should take everything that we are being all in is. putting, like I said earlier on, putting my heart on the altar. Wherever our heart is, that's where our, wherever our treasure is, is where our heart will be.

And being all in the gospel for me means living the gospel. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. That's who I am. I'm not afraid to say it anyway. And I live. Like a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints from Monday till Sunday, 24 seven, not just on Sundays, not just when I go to the temple now being all in doesn't mean I'm perfect.

It doesn't mean that I, I keep all of the commandments. What it means is, I strive to do the best I can to please my Heavenly Father within the circumstances that I am. Just like our children, if you have a child, they want to please you, they'll do their best. It doesn't mean that they do everything that you ask all of the time, because at the end of the day, Morgan, we are all human beings, we are all mortal.

mortals. We're all fallible. We can all make mistakes. We can all come short. We can be sick, tired, fed up, frustrated. All of those things that make this mortal realm what it is can make it difficult to do all things to all men all the time and do them right. So being all in means just giving it your whole heart and giving it your best.

And I'm sure that Heavenly Father would accept that as an offering.

[00:45:34] Morgan Jones Pearson: Thank you so much, Ore. It has been such a treat to talk with you, and you're even better than I expected. So thank you so much. Thank you.

We are so grateful to Ore Kaffo for sharing her story on today's episode. I'd also like to give a special thank you to Colleen Bowman for making me aware of Ore's story so that we would have the opportunity to chat. As always, we're grateful to Derek Campbell for his help with today's episode, and we are grateful to you for spending your time with us.

Thanks so much for listening.