One of our greatest opportunities to love others is found in Malawi, Africa. For nearly 2 decades the Lord has allowed us to play a part in caring for orphans and vulnerable children in Malawi.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries on the planet. Some estimates have Malawi being home to up to 2 million orphans under age 15. To play a small part in this plight, the Lord allowed us to construct a 10,000 sq. ft. main building with several other detached classroom buildings and such.

Shortly after the primary building was complete, the Malawi government officially made ‘orphanages’ illegal until they come up with a lot of difficult answers to impossible questions. In the mean time, Acts 3 has been operating in three specific capacities serving these orphans and vulnerable children in Malawi:

1. First, we are operating as an ‘orphan day care’ for 3-4 year old’s. The children (currently 75-80 on average) are dropped off at our site each morning. While in our care, we:
   * feed them a healthy breakfast and lunch
   * teach them pre-k lessons as well as Bible studies
   * provide a nice, safe playground and recreation areas
   * give medical attention as needed, and most importantly…
   * We love them with the love of Jesus.
2. Next, we are operating as a foster-placement agency of sorts. When the children are assigned to us by the government officials or local village chiefs, we have to do in-home interviews to find homes in the village near the facility to place the children in. These individuals are responsible for the children each month when they are not with us.
3. Finally, we have established a formal school approved by the Malawi Department of Education to teach the older children. Currently, we have classes for Standard 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. We are looking to see if we can expand to Standard 7 and beyond starting with the 2023-2024 school year.  

This is the direction that we are moving towards in regards to the Children’s Home:

• Boarding School – First of all, in order to satisfy the local government, we cannot operate as an ‘orphanage’ in the traditional sense. So instead, we are working hand in hand with the government to establish our facility as a “Boarding School for Orphans and Vulnerable Children.” While the name is different, it would essentially accomplish the same goal: safeguard the vulnerable children.
• Adoption Agency – Currently in Malawi, there is an aversion towards foreign adoption…but the current attitude may be changing. So we are pursuing this avenue to help find these beautiful and precious Malawi children a forever home with a loving family – either locally in Malawi or elsewhere in the world.

As an update, we were on track to have all of the necessary changes made to the Acts 3 site in order to start the boarding school in September, 2020. The current climate created by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent issues have severely hurt this progress. We will give updates as they are available.