For three years an orphan girl, Loveness Banda, has been coming to our Children’s Hour on Friday afternoons.  She is our daughter in Christ and has a way to smiling even though life is very difficult.  She shows the faith in her heart with her attitude, her actions and her words.

She does not remember her parents nor does she know how they died.  Her grandmother took care of her when she was a small child, but Grandma also died in 2003 when Loveness was seven years old.  Because she had no close relatives still alive, she ended up as an orphan at Mrs. Makwonali’s orphanage.  She will be twelve this week on the 4th of April.

The “orphanage” is a rental house in Baloota Village, a township of Blantyre.  They receive no government assistance, but survive on small donations here and there.  The house is made of mud and brick with no indoor plumbing or electricity.  The orphans eat porridge (corn flour and water), nsima (thick corn mash), vegetables, fruit, an occasional egg, and beans and peanut butter supplied from the missionary wives once a week.  When I asked her about meat, Loveness said they have meat only on Christmas.

The difficult life has made Loveness mature beyond her years.  Without adult supervision she often leads three to five children to our Children’s Hour every Friday afternoon.  Even when she was nine years old, she would walk three kilometers (about two miles) to meet my wife at a pick up point.  Sometimes she would walk the rest of the way to church, an additional two miles, many times carrying a little orphan child.

I asked Loveness what she worries about.  She mentioned just two things – being sick, and “if we don’t have food.”  She knows Jesus helps her and says, “Jesus makes us to be happy.”  She knows the most important fact about Jesus.  I’ll use her words exactly, “Jesus died on the cross for all our sins.”  Loveness looks forward to heaven and being a place where there is no sickness, where there will be continuous “praising the Lord,” and simply enjoying life without hardship.

I asked Loveness to give a message to American Christians.  Here is her advice to you: “If you worry, God will make you to be happy.  You must believe in God because he is our Savior.  Thank God for what you have done.”  And “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

We are in Malawi for Loveness and many, many other people like her.  We can’t supply all their earthly needs.  But we give them something far greater, the promise of everlasting joy through Jesus.  Please pray for us, and give generously to world missions so that God will continue to use us to carry out the Great Commission.