Busy kindergarten teacher goes to Africa as a new CNA

Her life defines "hectic." Kari Czer, 64, teaches kindergarten at the Lighthouse Church School. She volunteers at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. She coordinates for the Santa Monica Republican Women Federated and a smattering other community organizations. She is wife to a cardiologist and mother of seven kids.

In her free time (???), she studied to become a certified nurse assistant last summer. And as an inaugural act of the September certification, Kari Czer is traveling right now with her husband to Mwanza, Tanzania, to participate in Lighthouse Medical Missions' clinic there starting Monday.

“Let's put it this way: Jesus just gives me enough manna for everyday and that's all I need,” Kari said Thursday morning amid the kindergartners with whom she was singing and overseeing a party, while being interviewed for this story. Manna was the “bread from Heaven” given in daily portions to the Israelites in the desert, according to the Book of Exodus. “Our purpose in life is to love God and love people.”

This is her third such trip. On two other trips previously, she went with Lighthouse Medical Missions to Sierra Leone and to the Gambia.

“I'm really inspired by husband,” she said. Dr. Lawrence S. Czer, co-medical director of the Cedars Sinai's Heart Transplant Program, has gone on more than 20 medical missions. “I just want to be a help to him.”

The Santa Monica-based Lighthouse charity sends doctors and medicines around the world looking for the poorest and neediest, mostly in Africa. Its expenses, underwritten by donations and the “Walk to Africa” walkathon in Santa Monica every spring, run nearly $100,000 every year.

It seems like every time, Lighthouse Medical Missions proposes to do good, all hell breaks loose. This time, the terror attacks in Brussels have tied up 75% of the medicines and delayed their arrival until Tuesday, two days late for the start of the clinic. So LMM leader Dr. Bob Hamilton, a Santa Monica pediatrician, was left scrambling alternatives.

As for their personal security passing through airports, Dr. Hamilton said they don't cancel clinics based on international news except for the most drastic. "We do not travel in fear," he wrote in a email to supporters. "We believe we are called to be there individually to touch people's lives and bring light and hope to people who have none."

How did Kari have the time to get the nursing certification?

“It was a way for me to avoid writing my screenplay because the tabula rasa is very scary for me,” Kari said. She is working a modern version of the Christian classic In His Steps, but found it too easy to neglect in favor of eight hours of class time for three months, not to mention homework study, to get the CNA.

Kari studied the CNA not for professional reasons but rather to help in convalescent homes and other services. “I never did for professional reasons,” Kari said.

Of her children, one is a nurse and another is a dentist. All were graduates from the Lighthouse Christian Academy, which is associated with the Lighthouse Medical Missions. A Lighthouse high school student is among the 26 volunteers set to arrive in Mwanza on Monday.

Kari is known for drilling her kindergartners phonics so that they learn to read by December. She is an old-school teacher who uses love, discipline, song and vivaciousness to produce success-bound first graders who know how to sit still.

At the Lighthouse Church, Kari is indefatigable, pitching in with myriad activities, willing to serve even if there is no personal benefit for her.

Stateside, Kari volunteers for Dr. Robert Hamilton's Pacific Ocean Pediatrics. Dr. Hamilton founded and leads Lighthouse Medical Missions.

She volunteers for the Claris Westside Pregnancy Clinic on their prayer team. She volunteers at the Santa Monica History Museum. She is a member of the Los Angeles orphanage guild. (Ok, the rest of use mortals realize we are not doing enough.)

“My very first job when I was 17, I worked for a plastic surgeon,” Kari said. “That made me decide I didn't want to go into the medical field. But it also equipped me to marry a doctor because I know what's happening. But I enjoy helping people.”

Pictured: Singing lesson with Kari Czer at the Lighthouse Church School kindergarten on Thursday morning. Then she went home to pack for yesterday's flight out.