Nancy Churnin

Once upon a time, Texas native Alexis Hefley worked as a banker in San Antonio.

And then, after 10 years, the 1982 Texas A&M graduate thought there must be more to her journey.

"I used to perceive that everyone seemed to be part of a motion picture and I was in the audience watching it. And I wanted to be part of that motion picture," she says by phone from a tour bus. She's riding with excited kids traveling from the University of Florida in Gainesville, Fla., to the Virginia Arts Festival in Norfolk, Va.

The kids are part of Empower African Children's Spirit of Uganda program, a troupe of 22 ranging in age from 8 to 22, which has been raising money to help educate, shelter and raise awareness of their country's 2.4 million orphans.

The performances include virtuoso drumming, dancing, singing and the call-and-response vocals of their native East Africa. And 14 years after leaving banking to set out on a mission to help orphans in Uganda, Ms. Hefley, 47, has become the founder and chief executive officer of Empower African Children, a nonprofit organization that has an immediate goal of building a secondary school in Uganda.

The Spirit of Uganda will conclude its 21-city U.S. tour Thursday at the Dallas Children's Theater. It should be a sweet homecoming for Ms. Hefley, who has maintained a Dallas home and headquarters for her company for the last 12 years. During that time, she has arranged for several of the orphans she has mentored to be educated here on scholarship, including the company's artistic director, Peter Kasule.

Ms. Hefley first met Mr. Kasule, now 27, when he was a 12-year-old orphan in Uganda who had lost both parents to AIDS. He received a scholarship to study at St. Alcuin Montessori School, graduated from the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and went on to earn a degree in music technology from the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico.

Now he sits beside her in the bus as a success story: a young man who grew up to believe in himself and his ability to give back to others.

"For me, music has been a way out," he says softly. "It's been the only way I could truly share who I am. When I am onstage I feel there is a place I belong and can be free. It feels really good to see the children have the same happiness and joy onstage that I did."

Mr. Kasule, who hopes to see his old teachers and friends when he is back in town, says it has also been therapeutic for him and the children to embrace the beauty of his country's culture and to share it with others.

"The show is one hour and 45 minutes, and within that time it will be like a tour around Uganda – the movements, the dances, the music, the costumes, the different languages," he says. "We love Uganda a lot. And we have made a resolution that we cannot be sad, that we must move forward and become ambassadors for our country. We believe that through our music, we can touch lives and we can do anything."

It's also proved a profound journey for Ms. Hefley, who founded the Uganda Children's Charity Foundation in 1995 and Empower African Children in 2006.

Ms. Hefley, who has never married or had children, says she has learned a great deal from the joy and innate dignity of the Ugandan children. "I always thought I'd be married and have 10 children," she says. "But now I can't imagine loving my own children more than these children. I care so much about these young people. I see them as my family."

So is she now a player, rather than an observer, of the movie she envisioned so long ago?

"Yes," she says and laughs. "My life has been transformed on so many levels. I feel hugely blessed and privileged. It's about living a dream that can come true. Fourteen years ago, so many voices said, 'It can't be done.' This for me is an answered prayer. It's so inspiring to see that no matter where young people have come from, if they are given a window of opportunity to an education their lives can be transformed. It's so rewarding to see someone like Peter make it to the other side. We are the story of hope."

But ultimately, she adds, she is happy to be a supporting player to the children, who are the real stars.

"This is their journey," she says. "And I like knowing that on some part of their journey, I got to ride on their bus."

Spirit of Uganda will perform four times at the DCT. Three of the shows were sold out at press time, two as student matinees and one as a private performance for Episcopal School of Dallas. The children will return to Uganda on May 6.

Wine and hors d'oeuvres will follow the Thursday show. For more on Empower African Children, visit www.empowerafrican children.org. Macy's, the national sponsor of the American tour, will also donate 100 percent of the profits from a new book, Transcendent Spirit: The Orphans of Uganda, by photojournalist Douglas Menuez, to help the program.