All Saints Orphanage

One of the areas that God has been working in my life is keeping my eyes focused on Him and His plans. Things here run on a very different time table than we are used to. Most things start much later and no one is on time. You are lucky if you have 2 days to know when something is. Funerals take place the next day and they can change your plans suddenly. Sickness pops up quickly and severely. For someone that loves to plan and does not like change, this has been hard on me.  In my daily devotionals lately, most of them are about following the Lord and trusting in Him and following Him where He wants to go. Matthew 6:33-34 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own”.  The following is a story that has strengthened my faith in Him in this area.

One Sunday we went to a different church due to a transportation issue. On that day, they were happening to have a meeting with all the women from the church about going to visit an orphanage. Even in the inconvenience of not being able to drive, the Lord was directing our path. Miriam and I were able to visit that orphanage with them.

We took a bus ride. Miriam loves busses and was very excited about this. Some individuals have asked how going to an orphanage effects Miriam. At this point Miriam loves visiting any place because she loves children and playing with them. She instantly jumped off the bus and went to run and play with her friends. I slowly got off the bus and had taken 2 steps when the most adorable little boy came running at me and wanted picked up, he was stuck like glue to me for most of the day.

There are 65 children living at this orphanage. The youngest child was just brought to them and is 2 months old. Currently they have 25 children that are under 5 years old. The other 30 children are in primary and secondary school. They have 5 children that have graduated and are awaiting college and 5 more children that are already enrolled in University.  There is one child her name is Sella and she has been accepted and hopes to start university in June but does not have her funds yet. If you are interested in sponsoring her please contact us today at Luke.Jamie.Ulrich@gmail.com.

All of these children are orphans and do not have family to take care of them. A few of them have extended family that come to visit them. The facility is continually getting additional children.

Walking through the facility, there was one word that continually was being shown to me, ‘Love’. All of the staff had this amazing love that they showed over and over again to the children. The babies were being held and taken care of. Everyone was pitching in and doing laundry, preparing the food, and taking care of the daily needs of the kids. They are definitely fulfilling the scripture of James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

The facility is doing a wonderful job of trying to be self-sustaining. They have 200 chickens that produce an egg a day. They use these for eating and they also sell some eggs to the surrounding communities. They have a garden where they are producing food for the children to eat. They still live day to day to provide for all the needs. Please continue to pray that God will continue to meet their needs and for any future children that will be brought to the facility.

It was a joy to meet the staff and to meet the children. Miriam wanted to play, so I did not attend the entire presentation. This gave me the wonderful opportunity to just play with some of the children. We hope to continue to visit this location often. Thank You for praying for this wonderful place.

Finding Humor

These last few weeks have been full with traveling, language classes, and fellowship. We have been doing some traveling with the relief efforts and will send pictures soon. We thank you for your amazing donations. Mimi and I also got the privilege to go to an orphanage and spend the day there. It was a great experience and the young children are held and loved often. It was a place full of Joy. I will also post more about that facility soon. It is a little bit of a travel from us, but hope to be involved with it in a very personal way.

We did find a full time aid for Miriam for her class so thank you for all the prayers. This next month will be another transition for Miriam but we are praying that it will be full of peace and continued learning. Mimi also is making so much progress in therapy. Her therapist is so good and is continuing to work well with her. Mark is doing great, please pray for him as he is doing testing this semester. Continue to pray for patience and discernment, every week we are getting busier and busier but things are still moving slower than what we would like. I (Jamie) have a cold right now so pray that I can be back on my feet soon.

Large fishing net that was being repaired. It had already been folded and is at half of it’s full size

 

Life can just really be almost too much some days. Something that I have done for a while is keep funny moments from my life on hand and then when life is tough, I think of these and the Lord fills me again with joy.

CHAIRS

When we go places we always go sit on chairs in front of everyone, while they are doing their presentation and speeches etc.. Well these chairs are never the best chairs and the ground is never even so it is always hard to sit and then with Mimi on your lap it is even harder. I am not sure what happened but right in the middle of someone talking I fell over. Not just put your hand down and get back up… oh… my skirt went over my head, the chair fell over and fell apart. I am laughing from embarrassment. Mimi, who was next to me but did not get hurt, is saying “Mom what are you doing?” No one knows what to do, this white lady just completely wiped out. Someone comes to help me up and we continue. A week later we went to the same place. Where was one chair that was very similar to the one I fell out of and I said I think I will choose a different one. Everyone just laughed and it was actually a good relationship builder, oh what God uses to build relationships.

 

TRANSPORTATION

I am getting up the courage to take the three-wheeled motorcycle (tricycles) a little more and Luke meets me closer to home. The first day I did this with no help, I had to wait a while. I had been waiting and someone came up and asked in a car(taxi) if he could take me. It is normally a lot more expensive, but he gave me the same price. I think he felt sorry for the white lady who was waiting so long. When we get to the destination I said, “oh just drop me off here.” There was a long line and lots of traffic. So he goes okay, but hurry or I will get stopped by the police. He stops, I jump out, and my books fly everywhere. Thankfully there was no ticket given. I think I will be more patient next time.

Then another time I did get a tricycles. You have to wait till there are 3 people in them so I waited a while and then we finally got ready to go and it would not start. He kept trying and rewiring it since it didn’t have a key. Then someone finally pushed us and off we went. This happened to Mimi and I on a bus also.

LANGUAGE

One night Luke and I worked really hard on getting a few sentences down in Chichewa. I called my tutor and said in Chichewa, “Please meet me at Shoprite tomorrow.” I hung up and was so proud of myself. The next day I called her from Shoprite and asked, “Where are you?” She said, “Oh you were serious, I thought you were just practicing.” So now I clarify, it is not a joke and I am not just practicing.

TOILETS

The pit toilets here are just a small building with a hole in the ground. Most of the time it is square. Just to say, as a girl, it is really hard to get in this hole. I normally make a huge mess. We do not have to use these very often, but when we travel we do. The first time Mimi went in one she said, “Mom the toilet is missing?” But now she is a pro.

GHOSTS

Many children under 2 are really scared of Luke and I, due to our skin. Since they have never seen a white person before they just scream and scream and scream, thinking they are seeing a ghost. This is not a confidence booster most of the time. There is a little boy where we go to church that is terrified of us. We are friends with his dad but he still will not let either of us come close to him. One Sunday he really wanted to walk to his mom, but he had to walk past me. So he put his hands next to his face like shutters and walked all the way to the front of the church, past the preacher, and down the other isle, all the while with his blinders on just to get to his mom without getting too close to me. A few weeks ago I gave him a balloon. Luke saw him yesterday. He came running to him and said “balloon, balloon.” Luke did not have a balloon, but was able to give him a high five without any hesitancy. We are now friends. We jokingly call ourselves the friendly ghosts.

FOREIGN CAR

Sometimes when we are driving our car starts talking to us. We are not sure why or what language it is in. There is no rhyme or reason that we can figure out. But maybe someday we will know what it is telling us.

WATER

The day of Miriam’s birthday party there was no water. It had been off for almost 24 hours so our reserve was almost gone. It was an adventure cleaning all day, the floors, the bathrooms, etc., with as little water as possible. I also put gloves on plugged my nose and cleaned the poop out of the toilet. My mom would not be okay if I let people come over with poop in the toilet. The party was great but at the end the water truck came. From our observations, the guys don’t help with this. The women go take the big buckets and carry them back on their heads back. Luckily others helped with this, I am not sure if I can ever do this.

SALAD DRESSING

I have tons of things like toilet paper rolls, egg cartons, bottles etc.. Mimi uses them for sensory activities and I am planning on doing crafts with them in the schools. One day Mimi was playing with the bottles and beads etc.. All of a sudden her face goes white. She had stuck her finger in a bottle and could not get it out. It was a salad dressing bottle that has those grates in the cap, so if she pulled it out it would cut her finger all up. Mimi did not take this well, she is not hurt but does not know what to do. It took us at least 20 minutes to convince her that it was okay for Daddy to use the screwdriver to get it off. Daddy finally got the bottle off her finger with no scratches or cuts. Those bottles are no longer kept.

FOOD

As gifts are given, they like to get pictures of the transfer. The man in the red shirt was receiving food for his family from the Malawi Relief Fund. When we were finished I stepped back and looked up. The man was pulling his pants up. Luke said “Yep, his pants fell down.” He was able to laugh at the situation.

I pray that you find humor, laughter, and joy in your day.