"Orphans aren't usually orphans" and other disturbing facts from the villages

Only about an hour ago did the night air surrounding my room finally become still. The thumping club music has stopped and the club’s patrons have stumbled home, their voices loud, but their words slurred. The worship music blaring a few houses down, assumingly to drown out the noises I just mentioned, has also ceased. The taxis and bodas have stopped zooming by as they bounce almost uncontrollably down the windy, dirt roads. The dogs have stopped barking and howling choruses to each other across the city. The quiet sound of crickets in the far-off grass is the only thing that can be heard.

It’s 4:30 in the morning. I haven’t yet been able to sleep tonight but I am not the least bit tired.

For the second night in just three nights, God has used this stillness as a productive time for me to listen to his guiding and figure some things out.

In the quietness, God is reminding me of the things I have a burning and unquenchable passion for.

While I understand the importance of orphanages and baby homes, I have come to realize that partnering with them, through past experiences, is not where my heart is happy. Something about them never set well in my spirit. But I appreciated all that the house mammas and volunteers did for those children and honestly believed they were getting a better life than the life they would have had otherwise.

Unfortunately, that’s also what mammas in poverty-stricken villages think.

Today, I uncovered some unsettling facts.

Did you know that a lot of “orphans” in those homes aren’t actually orphans? 

According to the Lumos Foundation (and many other reputable organizations), at least 80% of children in orphanages have at least one living parent.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Eight out of ten children you might encounter in a Ugandan orphanage aren’t orphans.

So, you ask, why are they there?

The biggest reason is the same as I also believed: they are getting a better life there.

Hopeless, poor mammas from the village hear about a new orphanage run by Westerners that has thousands of dollars at its disposal and provides the children with medical care, three meals a day, a bed and mosquito net, clothes, hygienic care, schooling, and maybe even the chance to be adopted and live in America, where all their dreams will come true.

If you’re a struggling mamma who thinks you can do none of those things I just listed for your children and you only want what you feel is best for your baby, you will most likely go into town, find that orphanage, and leave your child at their front door. 

“Now they’ll have a better life,” you think. “Even though I’ll never see them again.”

The second reason so many children in orphanages aren’t orphans is a lack of knowledge.

Men from the city come into these same low-income villages and promise to find the children a sponsor from America. “These sponsors will pay for everything your child needs!” they promise. “Just sign this document and they get to come with us to the city and be boarded while we take care of them with this sponsor’s money!”

While, we Americans, think that sounds too good to be true and wouldn’t sign away our children like that, in actuality, it is not unheard of in Uganda for sponsors to request children from villages like that. The mammas see it as an answered prayer!

Unfortunately, this man has no intentions of finding sponsors for the children. He is a middle man, collecting children to sell them to people that will put them into orphanages. But the document they signed is in English- a language they cannot speak or read- and it just released them from all parental rights. They have just unknowingly signed their name to legally make their child an “orphan.”

Now, I’m not saying all orphanages operate this way; it is not common yet, but some are very aware of this problem and have procedures and safe checks in place to avoid having non-orphans in their orphanages. 

The sad part is, however, most orphanages don’t even know they are trying to find families for children who already have them.

While the reform of orphanages is currently underway by the Ugandan government and still needs a lot of help, the one thing about all that that tugs hard at my heartstrings is the hopelessness of the mammas. 

Yes, we can change the orphanages and have more strict rules and checks in place to limit the number of non-orphans they accept. 

Or we can start the change even further back than that.

What if we started the change among the mammas?

What if we went into villages empowering mammas?

We give them hope. We educate them, maybe even in English to avoid being tricked. We teach them how to provide for their families. We teach them skills so they can make money, other than farming. We educate them on basic, inexpensive hygiene and how to avoid illnesses. We love them. We tell them they are worthy. We encourage them and say they are capable of providing for their children. We remind them that a life of challenges for their child with a loving family beside them is still better than a “good” life in an orphanage spending months, years, even decades without the love of a family. We rally all the villagers to help, where they can. We bring back the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.” We point them to the bible, to God, to hope and joy. We offer bible studies to strengthen them spiritually, as well. We look into their eyes and lovingly say, as tears fall down our cheeks, “You are not alone.”

What would happen to the number of children in orphanages if we empowered and educated their mammas before they thought they had no other choice but to give them up or before they signed a document that was in opposition to what the man in front of them was saying?

My heart is for the mammas and their children in villages. 

It has been for six years now, since my first trip to Uganda. 

It wasn’t until a sleepless, quiet night staring out my window at the stars while tucked into my sheet and under my mosquito net, that I God showed me the small puzzle pieces of what that calling in my heart looked like and what needs to be done.

I don’t know what that looks like yet. I don’t know if there is an organization already in place with this same calling and mission. I don’t know if I will be the creator of a new organization that will put that into place.

But I know there is a need for the hope and joy of Jesus Christ to come in and turn a hopeless, joyless situation completely around and be a testimony to what the power of Christ’s love can do.

Please join me in praying for what this looks like in action. I’m trying to be open to whatever doors may come my way, which could be starting my own organization that does all of that or it could be partnering with one who is already trying to implement that.