Approximately 7,700 miles of land and ocean separate Oxford, Michigan from Nyahururu, Kenya.

Jesse Holt is hoping to reduce that vast distance by inviting folks here to open their hearts and wallets to help orphans in the East African nation.

“I think it’s important to take care of people who cannot take care of themselves,” said Holt, the lead pastor at LakePoint Community Church.

To that end, the church and downtown’s Boulevard Boutique are teaming up to sponsor a Mother and Daughter Fashion Show fund-raiser on Thursday, May 2 at the Boulder Pointe Golf Club in Oxford.

Proceeds will benefit Mt. Moriah Children’s Home, an orphanage established in Kenya 20 years ago by Mt. Moriah Ministries based in Glenmont, New York. Mt. Moriah was founded by pastors Stephen and Meredith Giles, the parents of Holt’s wife, Andrea, who serves as a worship pastor at LakePoint.

Tickets for the event are $35 each and include dinner, dessert, vendors, a 50/50 raffle and a silent auction. Boulevard Boutique will provide all the clothes, accessories and models for the show.

“The clothing that is shown (on the runway) can be purchased afterwards. Everything is for sale,” said Oxford resident Kim Lally, one of the event’s organizers.

Boulevard Boutique frequently holds fashion shows to benefit local charities. In February, the shop did one for Love In the Name of Christ of North Oakland County.

“It’s just a great evening,” Lally said. “The ladies love it. They’re very faithful to (shop owner) Sue (Oles) and her fashion shows.”

Lally said Boulder Pointe can accommodate 280 guests and she’s hoping the show will sell out.

Tickets are available at Boulevard Boutique (5 S. Washington St.) and LakePoint Community Church (1550 W. Drahner Rd.). They can also be obtained by calling Lally at (586) 879-9465.

Mt. Moriah Children’s Home is currently caring for 18 youths, according to Holt, who has made four trips there over the years.

Without the orphanage, these young people would most likely be living on the streets or worse.

“In Kenya, when they don’t have a place to put (orphans), they actually put them in jail,” Holt said. “There was a little 8-year-old boy (the orphange) got a couple years ago that had spent a couple nights in jail because they didn’t have any place to put him. I don’t think that 8-year-olds should be in jail.”

Before the orphanage was built, Holt said there was a pastor there “housing children in his chicken coop” to keep them safe.

“He was just taking them off the streets,” he said.

Holt is hoping the fashion show will generate enough money to help cover some of the orphanage’s operational costs and “take in more children.”

“We’re told in Scripture to take care of the widow and the orphan,” he said. “It doesn’t say (to do that) specifically where you’re located, it just says to take care of (them). We take that literally.”

Originally, the fashion show was supposed to raise money to drill a well to supply the orphanage with much-needed running water.

Water is a scare commodity in Kenya, according to Holt.

“It’s not everywhere,” he said. “Due to climate change, the dry season lasts longer and longer, and the rainy season is shorter and shorter.”

The people in Nyahururu have two options to obtain water. They can either travel to a reservoir and bring buckets of it back to their homes where they must boil it before using it or they can buy water from the city, the availability of which is “spotty at best,” Holt explained.

“It’s kind of like their internet (service) – you might have it one day and you may not (the next),” he noted.

Thanks to the efforts of LakePoint members, who raised and/or contributed between $20,000 and $25,000, the well project is already paid for. All that’s left to do is install it. That’s expected to happen in June, Holt said.

In addition to providing water for drinking, cooking and bathing, the well will allow the orphanage to raise crops and sell them to locals. The idea is to market them at a price point that’s high enough to generate a profit for the orphanage, but low enough to help feed people in the area, according to Holt.

Thanks to a donated microbial filter, there’s also the possibility of the orphanage bottling water and selling it “cheaply” to locals so they don’t have to travel to the reservoir or rely on the city’s inconsistent service.

“We’re trying to get the orphanage to be more self-sufficient,” he said.

Right now, Mt. Moriah Children’s Home is “100 percent dependent” on donations from United States citizens, which Holt said is not a good thing because financial support ebbs and flows.

Plans are in the works for LakePoint members to go on a mission trip to the orphanage in 2020.

Holt said there’s “plenty of work” to be done there, including installing a brick driveway to replace the dirt one, which is impassable during the rainy season, finishing the installation of showers, hanging and fixing drywall, painting and building fences.

“(The work) never ends,” he said. “It’s like owning a home in the States.”

Holt finds helping the orphans to be a “very rewarding” experience because “their faces light up” even when they’re given something as simple as shoes.

He feels that “sometimes” charity is “taken for granted” in the U.S. because it’s viewed as something “you’re supposed to do.” Holt said it’s not that way in Africa.

“When you help a Kenyan, they are so grateful,” Holt said.