Connections That Bring Hope - Theano Ratcliff (Theophilos 1995)

During a 10-week visit to Australia between assignments, before returning to Kenya for a further two years of service, we sat down with Theano Ratcliff (Theophilos 1995) to hear her story. It is a story that spans generations, continents and communities, demonstrating how a calling, first inspired during an assembly at PLC, continues to transform lives around the world through providing healthcare in Kenya's poorest communities in the form of gospel-shaped hope.

A single school assembly can change a life.

For Theano Ratcliff (Theophilos 1995), that moment came as a Year 5 student at PLC in 1988. Listening to a story shared by then Head of Junior School, Mrs Stratford, about an anthropologist working in Africa, she felt something she has never forgotten.

'I remember walking out of the Junior School Hall and feeling something drop into my spirit, a call to the mission field. I was 10 years old.'

Today, that calling has taken Theano, her husband Ian and their children, Trinity and Oliver, to Nairobi, Kenya, where they have spent the past two years serving some of the city's most vulnerable communities.

The story is also one of enduring PLC connections. Theano's nieces, Zoe and Eva Theophilos, are current Junior School students, while their father, Theano's brother, Dr Michael Theophilos, is a valued member of the PLC Prayer Community leadership team.

As a paediatric nurse and educator with Banda Health, Theano now supports more than 177 low-resource health clinics across Kenya. Rather than providing direct medical care alone, she equips and mentors local healthcare workers so they can better care for families living in some of the country's poorest communities.

Reflecting on the journey that led her there, she said, 'We had a beautiful life in Australia, but I felt there was more that we had to give. When I look back on my life, I want to know that we contributed something that mattered.'

The reality of life in Kenya has been both inspiring and confronting.

'I think the relentlessness of the poverty is the hardest part,' she said. 'These aren't just people in a photograph. I know their names. They're my friends. They come to my home and eat with us.'

Yet amid the hardship are extraordinary moments of hope. One of Theano's most treasured memories was taking a group of young women she mentors, many of whom have survived trafficking and exploitation, to see giraffes for the very first time and just have fun.

'They'd never been on a swing before. We'd laugh together, play together and simply let them be young women. There is so much joy alongside the sorrow.'

For Theano, transformation begins with relationships.

'We all need someone to see us, affirm us, love us and hear our story.'

As she prepares to return to Kenya for another two years of service with her family, Theano continues to live out the values first nurtured at PLC. Her journey reminds us that education extends far beyond the classroom, and that a seed planted in a young heart can grow into a lifetime of service, compassion and faith.

Click below to connect with Theano or to support her charitable work.