The Passion Center for Children serves children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic in Malawi. We seek to rescue those children at greatest risk, providing food, comfort, medical care, and a safe place to live in the name of Jesus Christ.
When is a bike ride more than a bike ride? When it allows you to break through more than just physical barriers.
Last month 40 of the Passion Center youth did just that. They participated in a 15 mile bike ride from the Passion Center to an outlying trading center in Jali. Most of our orphans have lived through traumatic events that debilitated them spiritually, psychologically and emotionally. These events vividly and painfully remind them that they have no future; that their lives are hopeless; that they will never succeed, and for some of them, that their HIV status dooms them to illness and early death. But all that is changing!
The Passion Center is focused on tangibly showing God’s grace and love. The stories of Mary, Often and Emily are examples of rescue and redemption and how the cycle of hopelessness and poverty is being broken. The volunteers from the Passion Center Community Health Network (CHN) are also breaking the pattern of silent suffering and hopelessness in the villages. What started with a small group connected to the Passion Center as relatives of our orphans, widows receiving encouragement or through attending a Village Bible Study—has now grown into a skilled, gospel sharing, multiplying, confident healthcare team!
It was encouraging to see how well Often Banda, Emily Mustafa and Mary Umali are doing. They’ve overcome so much and now they’re showing signs of leadership. In our recent trip to Malawi we stopped in at Mulunguzi Secondary School. While there I was reminded again how powerfully God is changing the lives of the Passion Children, and how this also impacts those around them. Often, Emily and Mary come from three ministry programs that focus on rescuing orphans from different situations.
We’d like to introduce you to Precious Jali. He has no specific sponsor but his home is the Passion Center. You see Precious represents a growing group of orphans whom the police and Child Welfare departments cannot care for and whose guardian and legal status is uncertain.
The police brought Precious to the Passion Center six months ago asking us to take him in. He was found in a northern district when his uncle abandoned him at a roadside market bus stop. He remembers that his parents died long ago and he has lived with and worked for his uncle for as long as he can remember. When told by his uncle that they were moving, he gathered all his belongs and they made the journey to the bus stop. While waiting for transport, his uncle sent him on a shopping errand, but when Precious returned his uncle had disappeared. Read more…
Yanjanani, never was good at school. She’s repeated a couple of grades twice now. Like so many orphans who have missed long periods of education due to caring for ailing parents, lack of funds, poor nutrition or no emphasis on the importance of education, Yanjanani is not able to graduate from Secondary School. She admits it and her teachers confirm it. But we believe God can provide a way for her to support herself and those who depend on her. Yanjanani came to the Passion Center five years ago, her mother died in 2004 and her father long before then. Her grandmother took her and a sibling in, but she suffered from tuberculosis and can no longer get out of bed. The family now looks to Yanjanani to meet its needs.
It is for Yanjanani, and others like her, that the Passion Center began the vocational training ministry. Sadly, without skills to get a job or earn a living, orphans feel forced to enter early marriages, suffer from child labor exploitation as well as sexual exploitation, live on the street in increasing number and are more vulnerable to HIV infection, disease and malnutrition. This is a cycle that must be broken. One of the six themes the Passion Center uses to guide us in bringing real change to the life of a Passion child is by providing Skills for Life. This includes providing admission to primary and secondary school for every child, and making available quality vocational training or access to college. How that actually works out requires a personal touch because each child’s situation is unique. Read more…
“You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.”
