"It just kicks in you know. An automatic fatherly instinct I guess." That fatherly instinct overcame Marshalltown native Roger Hatch three years ago. That's when he joined a local doctor on a medical mission trip to the war-torn country of Sierra Leone. A

As a builder, Hatch had planned on using his skills to help some people rebuild their homes. What he hadn't planned on is building a home for hundreds of kids who didn't have one. He admits the accommodations are nothing luxurious. "We have a well with a hand pump now so we can have clean water, but we have no electricity so in the evening we use kerosene lamps or candles for lighting and that's what our kids study from" However, just having a safe place to study-let alone sleep and eat is something the children had never experienced.

Today Hatch considers himself the orphanage's international director, mostly working from Marshalltown to coordinate donations, but this man's generosity hardly stops there. A few months ago Hatch and his wife decided to adopt two of the orphans to raise as their own.

While he was in Sierra Leone starting the paperwork, Hatch learned of yet another orphan in desperate need of his help. When Lansana Moriba arrived at Hatch's orphanage, he was supporting his grandmother by begging on the streets. 

At the orphanage, Lansana got to have fun instead of begging for food. He also got the one thing his body needed the most-a visit to the doctor. Hatch says he doesn't know just how Lansana's accident happened, but what he knows is that Lansana and his mother were in their house when it fell in on them.  At the same time, his mother was bit by a poisonous snake and died.

As if this eight-year-old hadn't been through enough, the way in which he was pinned damaged his urethra, making it nearly impossible for his bladder to work right. When the doctor told Hatch about Lansana's condition, he says he had no choice but to step in. "He said if we don't get Lansana treated he'll die in his teen years from kidney failure," Hatch says "So we just thought we gotta get something done for him . God didn't bring him all this way just to die in his teen years"

At the end of his visit Hatch decided to take Lansana home to his farm in Marshalltown Iowa.  Their first stop was Fisher Elementary School where Lansana enrolled in the second grade. From there, Hatch was off to the hospital.  He convinced the Marshalltown Medical Center and a specialist from the University of Iowa to fix Lansana's condition for free. Then, it was back home to the rest of the Hatch family to introduce Lansana to American life.