A cou­ple of orphan­ages in Malawi has links to your blogger’s home state. Chris­t­ian Church Inter­na­tional which was started in Flint, Michi­gan oper­ates the Noah’s Ark orphan­ages in Malawi. Noah’s Ark takes in chil­dren orphaned by AIDS or malaria.

Robin Rosen­thal is spend­ing the sum­mer vol­un­teer­ing Malawi and writ­ing about her trip for the Kala­ma­zoo Gazette. yopu can view Robin’s blog at Give Good Day. From her lat­est story, we learn more about the great need for the many chil­dren who have lost their par­ents in Malawi.

In a coun­try where the peo­ple lit­er­ally are starv­ing to death, Noah’s Ark has brought hope — and given life — to nearly 100 orphans in two com­mu­ni­ties. Chil­dren walk miles in the ris­ing sun to come to the cen­ter for break­fast, then turn around and walk back the same path to school. Some make the same trek at lunchtime, while the orphan­age takes lunch to oth­ers. After school, chil­dren rush to the cen­ter for a last meal and some­times more school­ing.

Pas­tor Cap­tain Chisale runs the Mateketa cen­ter, which serves a more remote and needy pop­u­la­tion. He spends about $20 a month for 144 pounds of maize to feed the orphan chil­dren. He also grows his own maize to ensure that his fam­ily and the fam­i­lies at Noah’s Ark have food after the har­vest, when food prices nearly double.

“By Feb­ru­ary, peo­ple come here beg­ging for food,” he said.

The cen­ters each receive about $500 a month in dona­tions, mostly from the Flint area, to oper­ate. But that isn’t enough to meet even the cur­rent needs. Often the cen­ters turn to Malaw­ians for donations.

Just before our group arrived, the Chir­imba Town­ship cen­ter received more than 130 bags of a vitamin-enriched por­ridge from Feed the Chil­dren and a promise of more to come. Sisco said she will take the sav­ings from that dona­tion to buy fresh veg­eta­bles for the chil­dren, a del­i­cacy in Malawi.

There’s no ques­tion that orphan­ages like Noah’s Ark are a life­line in Malawi. But the need con­tin­ues to out­pace resources. Sisco said she’s tear­fully turned away children.

“It hurts,” Sisco said. “I do a lot of praying.”

When the Mateketa cen­ter opened in 2007, hun­dreds of chil­dren lined up for help. Within walk­ing dis­tance of the cen­ter are well over 100 orphans. That num­ber grows with each pass­ing day.

“They’re com­ing to us,” Chisale said. “I was born here. I know every­one around. If there’s a funeral, there is a kid (left behind).”

On my first day of walk­ing the streets here in Malawi, I watched sev­eral men dig a grave, while just a yard away sev­eral other men qui­etly bid farewell to yet another Malaw­ian. I stood from a dis­tance, won­der­ing if another child had been orphaned.

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