Sybil Colin admits it sounds odd. To help the AIDS babies in her native South Africa, she needed to move 12,000 miles and become a United States citizen.

Sybil and her husband, Ronnie, moved to Lawrence, in part, to use exchange rates to leverage U.S. dollars into even more South African currency to help fight the AIDS epidemic in South Africa.

Sybil, 69, will become a U.S. citizen today during a naturalization ceremony at the Dole Institute of Politics at Kansas University. Ronnie is expecting to become a citizen in a few months.

“God sent us here for a purpose and a mission,” Sybil said. “He has blessed us with this cause. We need to be citizens.”

The Colins moved to Lawrence in 1996 after Ronnie was invited to coach the Kansas City Blues rugby team.

Ronnie, now 71, had been a professional rugby player in England and coached South African teams before owning several businesses, including a packaging company and a supermarket. Sybil was a social worker.

Thoughts on Americans

For most of their lives, moving to the United States had never crossed their minds.

Sybil Colin, left, is one of four Lawrence residents going through the citizenship ceremony today at the Dole Institute. Sybil's husband, Ronnie, was to have taken part in the same ceremony, but a longer processing of his paper work will delay his becoming a U.S. citizen.

“Americans traveling are some of the most arrogant, disrespectful pigs I’ve found,” Ronnie said.

But during a pair of vacations to the United States in the late 1980s and early 1990s, their impressions changed.

“When we got here, Sybil and I found the most beautiful people I’ve met in my life,” Ronnie said. “In America, they were totally different. They were exactly the same as us. They had both feet on the ground.”

When they moved to Lawrence, the Colins’ son, Schaun, already lived in Lenexa. He was in the process of starting Oceans of Mercy, a nonprofit organization designed to help children with AIDS living in South Africa.

Estimates from the government and other sources say 200 children are born HIV-positive in South Africa every day. There will be 2.5 million AIDS orphans by 2010.

“They’re so cute,” Sybil said. “Some of them survive for a while; others don’t.”

The organization, with Schaun, Sybil and Ronnie Colin leading the way, in January will purchase a farm in South Africa that will house children who have lost their parents to HIV. They have an American doctor, nurse and pharmacist prepared to work there.

Raising the funds

And the Colins are working to raise money for the project. Because $1 in American currency is the equivalent of about 7 rand, the South African currency, fund raising is more effective in the United States than it would be in the Colins’ home country.

Ronnie operates a small coffee shop, Coffee Bay, 10244 Pflumm Road in Lenexa, with many of the proceeds and other donations from patrons going to Oceans of Mercy.

For a recent trip to South Africa, Ronnie collected $3,500 for an AIDS orphanage from his patrons. Because the exchange rate was better at the time, it purchased the equivalent of $35,000 in supplies for the home.

“What’s happening in Africa is the saddest thing,” Ronnie said. “There are many beautiful people collecting money to help.”

Schaun Colin said his father’s coffee shop was “a community like nowhere in the city.” He said his parents’ help with the AIDS project was a sign of their faith.

At his Coffee Bay coffee shop in Leawood, Ronnie Colin, Lawrence, dispenses a warm greeting with every cup of joe. Money that Colin and his wife, Sybil, get in donations at the coffee shop goes to AIDS relief in their native South Africa. Today, Sybil will become a U.S. citizen in a ceremony at the Dole Institute. Ronnie hopes to become a U.S. citizen at a later date.

“They will literally live anywhere and be anywhere that God is calling them to be,” he said. “Age is not a factor. Most people would be worried about their retirement or making sure their ducks were in a row. They love God and they love people. This is a great way they can help.”

‘A real African-American’

Sybil said becoming U.S. citizens would aid in travel to South Africa and might help with the couple’s pension funds.

She said she would feel mixed emotions today as she took the oath of citizenship. That’s partly because, although they applied for citizenship at the same time, Ronnie’s paperwork wasn’t processed as quickly. He plans to participate in a later ceremony.

“I have no idea what I’m going to feel,” Sybil said. “I love South Africa. I’m going to be a real African-American. You don’t have to be black to be an African-American.”

Ronnie said he knew what he’d be feeling — pride.

“America is getting an angel to be a citizen,” he said. “My wife’s an angel.”