Are Orphan Care Ministries Really Helping?: The Plight of the Orphan in Developing Countries

By Musa Okolo

Sponsorship organisations sincerely set out to help orphans in Africa and other developing countries out of their misery and hopelessness by providing them with a family environment in which they can experience love and hope. To accomplish this, a sponsorship organisation often works with a like-minded partner organisation that executes its vision and objectives. Unfortunately, this is usually plagued by many complex problems that, if not resolved, can become insurmountable.

In this book, the author draws on his many years of experience in working for orphans in Africa to identify difficulties that seem to be inherent in such an endeavour. He has determined that these problems stem from three specific areas: the orphans themselves, the partner organisation, and the sponsor organisation. Each of these has its own unique challenges; and when these unique challenges interact, they become so complicated that, if their root causes are not isolated and resolved, the ministry may eventually collapse.

The telltale signs of such an eventuality are perceptible--but only to the discerning mind. Musa Okolo identifies and offers practical solutions to these challenges, which will enable orphan care ministries to understand and deal with the complex issues involved and hence achieve their objectives and fulfil their vision.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 27, 2023
• ISBN: 9781639610167

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Are Orphan Care Ministries Really Helping?

The Plight of the Orphan in Developing Countries

Musa Okolo

ISBN 978-1-63961-015-0 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63961-016-7 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Musa Okolo

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

What Is the Purpose of This Book?

Chapter 1

Who Is an Orphan?

Chapter 2

The Rights of a Child

Chapter 3

Children's Home or Orphanage?

Chapter 4

The Role of Sponsors, Donors, and Sponsorship Organisation

Chapter 5

The Role of Partner Organisation

Chapter 6

Home-Based Sponsorship Programme

Chapter 7

Case Study: Kasana Children's Center, Uganda

Chapter 8

So Then What?

About the Author

To

All those men and women

Who against many odds and in the thick of endless battles

Selflessly, sacrificially, honestly, and sincerely

Labour and even languish out there

To ensure that orphans are comforted in diverse ways

And

To all orphans everywhere who must

Suffer silently in the hands of

Selfish, cold-hearted, and malicious men and women

Yet never give up until they approach and perhaps obtain

That which they have always desired

From childhood

Preface

When I think of Musa Okolo, I will forever picture a lazy evening in Uganda when a knock at the door interrupted our family dinner. I opened the door to find him and his wife, Mary, standing outside with bewildered looks on their faces. Musa had a dried leaf in his hair and a fire in his eyes. ‘We have been through hell' was his response to my questioning look. They had been held at gunpoint while on an overnight bus from Kenya to Uganda. But God had protected them, and they had made it back to Kasana to rejoin their classmates in the Institute for Gospel Transformation where they were studying.

I share this story because when we pick up a book, we are tempted to picture the author in a detached sort of way, perhaps in a study of some kind, churning out material while somehow out of touch with real life (or at least our own ‘unique' context). I pick up this book and picture Musa with a dried leaf in his hair, having lived through extremely difficult challenges that most of us could not even imagine surviving.

This is the same reality when we are reading or discussing anything relating to orphans. We can listen, read, or write on the subject in a detached sort of way, out of touch with the real-life experiences and situations that the global pandemic of fatherlessness has thrust before us. Or we can forget that the majority of orphans worldwide have lived through extremely difficult challenges that most of us could not even imagine surviving. The needs are so great, and the labourers so few in comparison. We need to see beyond what our own eyes have shown us and have ears to listen to others who are also labouring in the fields of the fatherless and who have passed through the fires of trial across the globe.

This is where Musa Okolo is coming from. He has ministered to orphans for over twenty-one years, from working with large relief-oriented organisations to comparatively small children's homes. He has experienced first-hand the great good and the great harm that can be done to children, communities, and organisations through those seeking to help and not hurt orphans and families but who inexplicably find themselves doing the latter. He has asked the difficult questions, and he has lived the difficult challenges in orphan care. And he is an African.

Today, there are so many positive voices in the conservation of global orphan care. Organisations like the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) and Compassion International have done great good in drawing in local and global partners and furthering the conversations while providing tools for implementing excellence for orphans all over the world. Books like In Pursuit of Orphan Excellence have sought to bring together various expertise and experience in order to challenge the popular models or practices in the world of caring for orphans and to promote excellence in orphan care. Yet one thing is sorely lacking across the board—the voices of partners and leaders in the Majority World.

Here in Are Orphan Care Ministries Really Helping? we are provided with a much-needed voice in the area of orphan care, and it is such a joy to be able to have the voice of an African to join the global conversation. Indeed, we Westerners need to take time to listen and to seriously consider the voices that are coming from outside of our own cultural context. We must allow our paradigms to be challenged and to humbly receive from the perspectives of others, especially those who have been on the ‘receiving end' of Western care.

In Africa, our African brothers and sisters have carried the torch for so long while we Westerners have directed the ship. This must change, and this book is a good step in the right direction of listening to the perspectives and solutions of others. And for the Africans or Majority World readers of this book, we need more thoughtful and constructive dialogue for how to best care for orphans in the diversity of contexts that each of our local and global situations have given rise to.

Are Orphan Care Ministries Really Helping? will provide transformational concepts for many who are working with orphans in a children's home or family-home model of ministry or who are working with organisations partnering or working directly with orphans or orphan ministries in other countries. This book will also provide nuggets of wisdom for anyone, regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of orphan care. I hope you will read it with eagerness for where God might challenge you and with grace for where you think otherwise.

Keith MacFarland

Principal, New Hope Institute for Gospel Transformation

New Hope Uganda Ministries

Introduction

An alternative title for this book would be, appropriately, The Silent Voices or The Silenced Voices. The former because orphans all over the world cannot speak about their dilemma as, given their dependent circumstances, vocalising their tribulations could easily cost them their accommodation—whether at relatives' homes or at children's homes. And the latter because the caregivers will do whatever it takes, including driving the orphans out, to ensure that they do not vocalise their tribulations and thereby ‘spoil' the caregivers' reputations or effectively disrupt the flow of funding from abroad.

Well, there is no need to mention that there are orphans living with and among us, nor the fact that very many of them undergo extreme suffering where they are. In developing countries, orphans usually live with their relatives, but if there are no relatives willing to take them in, they will live in their home on their own, with the eldest taking the double role of father and mother to the younger siblings—of course, that is mind-boggling, but it is happening. Still other orphans find their way into sponsorship programmes such as children's homes or home-based sponsorship programmes (HBSPs).

The severe realities that orphans face, live with, and experience are countless and immeasurable yet are barely documented. While, arguably, this is part of the reason little attention has been given to these realities, it is also a fact that people generally do not give much thought about how these severe realities can be eased and thereby enable the orphans to live normal lives. Still, it must be acknowledged that the complex personality of an orphan renders him/her very difficult to understand and deal with. Consequently, many people, having a desire to help, make substantial and visible efforts to do so but which, unfortunately, have little impact in the orphans' lives.

It should not surprise anyone, then, particularly those making huge efforts towards helping orphans, that these efforts may sometimes be, to a considerable extent, vain. Not only do orphans continue to be distressed while being helped, but many orphan care organisations are struggling hard to stay relevant to their own set objectives. Governments, on the other hand, are clearly clueless when formulating policies and guidelines on orphan care.

In their book When Helping Hurts, Corbett and Fikkert have emphasised that well-intentioned welfare programmes penalised work, undermined families, and created dependence. The government hurt the very people it was trying to help. Unfortunately, the same is true for many Christian ministries today. By focusing on symptoms rather than on the underlying disease, we are often hurting the very people we are trying to help. Surprisingly, we are also hurting ourselves in the process. As followers of Jesus Christ, we simply must do better.¹

There is no doubt that all participants in orphan care, whether at the family, organisation, or government level, need to take a deeper look at the real causes of the worrisome trend of this important aspect of our society's social rubric. In doing so, orphans must first and foremost be recognised as real persons with not just rights as children but also feelings and aspirations, and unique gifts, talents, and capabilities that would lead to their own self-actualisation and their contribution to national development.

Second, it is crucial for ministries to appreciate the fact that operating a children's home or a home-based sponsorship programme (HBSP) involves a number of complexities that must be judiciously addressed, including the following:

The reality of the cultural divergences between the two societies, namely, the West on one hand and African and other developing countries on the other. This is crucial when considering operational guidelines and policies.

The huge distance, usually thousands of kilometres, between the sponsoring organisation in the West and the benefiting partner organisation in Africa and other developing countries.

Whether the administrative structures of the benefiting partner organisation are in place and operational.

Ensuring that the organisation's policies are not in conflict with those of the host government.

What Is the Purpose of This Book?

Orphan care, whether undertaken as a familial duty or as a vocation, is riddled with real problems that are not ordinarily recognizable by all and sundry. In fact, even the very people who are genuinely committed to and are ministering to orphans are frequently at a loss when it comes to resolving issues that affect the well-being of the orphans and the organisations in their charge. Such issues usually threaten the very existence of the orphan care organisations.

The pages of this book are filled with real and practical aspects of taking care of orphans at the family and organisation levels, the latter being given greater emphasis due to the significant role orphan care organisations play by taking care of large numbers of orphans at the same time.

Beginning with helping the reader to have an understanding of the heart of an orphan, that is, his/her perception of people and issues around him/her and how s/he reacts to stimuli, the book breaks down the complexities involved in running an orphan care organisation. It is, so to speak, a view of the operations of such an organisation from within: a detailed examination of the major issues that positively and negatively impact the organisation's effectiveness.

In summary, this book asks and also attempts to provide answers to the critical question, ‘What ails orphan care organisations?' We have arranged the chapters in such a way that one topic logically leads and flows to the next so that the material remains comprehensible to the reader throughout the book.

Hopefully, this groundbreaking book will bring a new focus to orphan care ministry.

Blessings!

Chapter 1

Who Is an Orphan?

Who is an orphan? For purposes of clarity, it is important to differentiate between a spiritual orphan and a physical orphan, for both of these statuses are practical and real. Understandably, everyone is familiar with the physical orphan; however, as much as the physical orphan presents a challenge to society today, so does the spiritual one. In fact, a scrutiny of the latter will reveal that it may present even a more serious and difficult challenge to the society than the former.

The Spiritual Orphan

According to Galatians 3:26, ‘You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.' That is to say that all those who believe in Jesus Christ are true spiritual children of God. It is by faith alone that a person becomes a child of God. In John 1:11–13, the concept of becoming a child of God is plainly explained: ‘He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children not born of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.' They have a Father in God as a result of believing in Jesus Christ as the one and only Son of God (John 3:16). By contrast, the person who has not believed in and has not received Jesus Christ as the one and only Son of God is not a spiritual child of God. S/he is a spiritual orphan.

Galatians 3:27 continues, ‘For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.' Believing in Christ results in a spiritual union with Him so that the life of a believer is reflective, to a considerable extent, of the life of Christ. In fact, the believer acquires the righteousness of Christ and so is righteous henceforth.

So it is written in Philippians 3:9, ‘And be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith.' Moreover, this person's sins have been forgiven forever: ‘As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us' (Psalm 103:12). The believer, therefore, is a person at peace in his heart because he has ‘the blessed hope', a hope that is higher than this world and what it can offer.

Furthermore, the righteousness of the believer, enhanced by the resident Holy Spirit, brings out a physical character that cannot be challenged by any law. Galatians 5:22–24 states, ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.'

Contrarily, the spiritual orphan is ruled by ‘the sinful nature with its passions and desires', and his character is such that he is often coming into conflict with the law. Galatians 5:19–21a states,