A Father to the Fatherless

Catherine Mumba was five when she was sent to live with her aunt. Her mother had died minutes after Catherine was born in Zambia, Africa, and her father died later that day of cholera. Catherine had lived happily with her grandmother for five years when her grandmother passed away, leaving Catherine with no one to care for her but her aunt. Her aunt, already the mother of three, agreed to take Catherine in, but made it clear that she was nothing more than an unwanted burden. Already in sorrow over the loss of her family members, things went from bad to worse for little Catherine. Her aunt began to viciously abuse her, verbally and physically, denying her food and blankets.

For three long years the mistreatment dragged on. Many times, Catherine remembers praying for relief, but none came. One day in June of 2006, her aunt locked the door, tied her hands and her legs and whipped her from morning to night. At nine o’clock that night, a neighbor heard Catherine’s cries and called the police. The police arrested her aunt but released her the next day, after advising her to take Catherine to someone that could care for her. They recommended she take Catherine to the reputable John and Joyce Jere of Samaritan Children’s Home.

Reverend John and Joyce Jere, locals of Lusaka, Zambia were unable to have children of their own, but found themselves witnessing the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in their own backyard. The result of this pandemic is a staggering estimated 850,000 orphans in Zambia alone according to United Nations Development Programmes representative, Aeneas Chuma. John and Joyce opened their hearts and home to children who had no one to love or care for them. Soon the tiny Samaritan Children’s Home was crowded with 33 children. The dedicated couple sold their home and purchased property 15 km south of Lusaka, Zambia. With some funding from Christians in the U.S., they were able to complete a larger Children’s home, which is now overflowing with 54 orphans. Samaritan Children’s Home also provides funds for the care of 16 additional children who live with relatives who cannot afford to provide for them.

John and Joyce are not satisfied with just rescuing 70 children from a life of terror, hopelessness, violence and disease. They envision a self-sufficient farm that provides for the needs of many children. As the Lord has provided, they have been able to begin constructing a multi-purpose hall, and a medical clinic. The multi-purpose hall will house Reverend Jere’s church, Every Nation Christian Church, a Christian School for their children and other children in the community, and will be rented out on weekends to provide income to feed the children. The medical clinic will be housed on the farm and will be open to the community as well as treating the Jeres’ children, many of whom suffer from sexually transmitted diseases which they picked up while surviving in the gutters of Zambia.

When Memory Sakala arrived at Samaritan Children’s Home, she was suffering the effects of one or more sexually transmitted diseases. Memory’s parents passed away when she was four years old, leaving their three children under the age of four with no one to turn to. Memory watched her younger siblings die in the streets, but she endured beatings and sexual abuse from older street children for five years before the Jeres found her and provided her with safety, medical treatment for her diseases, nourishing food, and the love of a family.

Jesus tells us through James, that, “Religion that God the Father finds as pure and faultless is this: to look after widows and orphans in their distress…” James 1:27. John and Joyce Jere are being faithful to practice pure and faultless religion by caring for the orphans of Zambia. But they cannot do it alone: the needs of children in Zambia are great. The Jeres share that their hearts break because last November, due to limited resources, they had to turn down 35 children who desperately needed care. Seventy orphans cared for by the Jeres is just a drop in the bucket that is overflowing with 850,000 orphans who desperately need help. But we are confident that Jesus cares enough for children like Memory and Catherine to raise up Christians in Zambia to care for them and Christians in the rest of the world to support them.

by Summer Kelley