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When Austin speaks at the conferences, he tells the girls, "You don't have to change the world. You just change the world for one person."

Austin doesn't get caught up in the politics or morality questions of AIDS.

"As kids, we don't worry about why anybody has it or how they got it," he says. "All we kids want to do is help other kids.

"We can change the world as kids," he adds, citing 1 Timothy 4:12 as his motivation. "We don't need to wait till we are adults. We can make a difference now."

As a preschooler, Kendall Ciesemier believed she would grow up to be famous, though she didn't know what for.

Then, one day in fourth grade, Kendall came to her parents, Mike and Ellery, and said, "God told me I'm going to be famous for helping people."

But what people? She found the answer a year later while watching an Oprah special on AIDS orphans in Africa. Kendall, then 11, was moved by the story of a 12-year-old girl who had lost her parents to AIDS and was caring for three younger siblings.

"I thought, How can anybody do that?" Kendall, now 15, says. "My mom was sitting there crying, but I was thinking, You can cry, but I'm going to do something about it."

She went to her room, did an online search for "AIDS orphans in Africa," and found World Vision's website, where she learned she could sponsor a child for $360 a year. She rounded up her birthday and Christmas money and part of her savings, stuffed $360 into an envelope, and asked her parents for a stamp.

"I'm sponsoring a child," she announced. "And don't ask me a lot of questions, because I want to do this all by myself."

Six months later, Kendall needed a liver transplant. Born with a rare condition called biliary atresia, she had lived a relatively normal childhood, though with frequent medical attention. Now her liver was failing. She spent most of the summer of 2004 in the hospital; the first transplant failed due to complications, but the second was a success.

Just before being admitted to the hospital, Kendall had an idea: Rather than collect the usual sickbed assortment of flowers and teddy bears, why not ask people to donate to AIDS orphans instead? She went back to World Vision's website and learned that she could sponsor a community in Zambia—for $60,000.

"So that's where I set my goal," she says. "My parents were like, 'Maybe you should go for $1,000.' They tried to convince me to aim lower, but I was like, 'No way!' "

And with that, on the eve of a surgery she might not have survived, Kids Caring 4 Kids (KC4K) was born. Even while Kendall was fighting for her life, donations started pouring in.

Once out of the hospital, she recruited friends and held bake sales, set up lemonade stands, and sold KC4K T-shirts. In October 2006, they reached the $60,000.

Kendall also connected with the AIDS ministry at Wheaton Bible Church, the suburban Chicago congregation her family attended at the time. Through the church's missionaries and partnerships, Kendall and KC4K began supporting Hope for Life, a ministry to orphans in Kenya.

Word about KC4K started to spread. cbs did a piece for The Early Show. And in early 2007, Kendall was named one of Prudential's "Top Ten Youth Volunteers" in the nation.

Then Oprah noticed. Working secretly with Kendall's parents, Winfrey's staff arranged a surprise assembly at Wheaton North High School in September 2007. Former President Bill Clinton, at the time promoting his new book, Giving, was to be the special guest.

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December 2008, Vol. 52, No. 12