A Higher Purpose…

There are some people that recognize their purpose in life at a very young age…Ochimi Edward was such a person…

He was born in Eastern Uganda and at a very young age, his mother divorced his father and left. Ochimi was raised by a rarely present father and more than one step mother. He told us that his childhood was very difficult…and that he only survived by “the grace of God”. But his trials as a child taught him compassion…taught him mercy…taught him grace and gave him a desire to pursue an education that would give him the opportunity to give back to his people…to give back something lasting. And so it was that Ochimi Edward chose to become an educator. He graduated from college with a teaching degree and went on to get a diploma from a Bible College as well.

After college he found a job working in an elementary school teaching 3^rd graders. It was there that he was slowly but surely drawn towards another path as he witnessed the suffering of children in the very school in which he worked. Children lost their parents to HIV/AIDS and could no longer attend school. Fathers and mothers abandoned their children and they could no longer attend school…and in both cases there was no one to care for them…feed them, clothe them…love them.

Nine years passed. Ochimi now had a family of his own…a wife and four children. He had taught and watched many children come through his classroom…and there was a certain satisfaction in knowing he had provided an important element in life to those children…he was giving them knowledge and skills…he was feeding their minds. But as he continued to watch the suffering of so many of the children in his community, he realized that for him, it was not enough to just feed their minds…not for him.

 It was time. He started reaching out for help and found a source to fund a building…found Orphan’s Lifeline International to fund the day to day care of the children he had gathered together from the area…orphans without hope…and Butiki Children’s Home…the destination on the path he had been drawn to, became a reality.

 On top of a grassy hill in Uganda, a simple building rose up…and its doors and the doors to Ochimi Edward’s heart opened up to nearly sixty orphan children who had no where else to go. He hired staff…caregivers, security and educators and they all went to work for the children.

Just imagine it for yourself…what it is to be an orphan in a country where there are no formal services for children without parental care…just imagine that a day comes in your young life in which you suddenly have no parents…suddenly have no no hope. You can’t go to school anymore…and your friends wait for you outside the school building, but you don’t come. You don’t know what to do.

Like many homes in Uganda, there is only food for a few more days…and you know that your uncle will come soon to lay claim to his brothers property…but he has made it clear that you are not welcome…he already has too many mouths to feed. You gather together the meager food supply and portion it out into three equal piles…then change your mind and make it into six even smaller piles, and then once again the sting of tears fills your eyes as the lonliness and hopelessness are too much to bear until finally you are sobbing, then crying out loud. You curl up in the corner…exhaustion takes over and you drift off to sleep, utterly alone.

The very next day, you awaken…the sun is rising and it spills in through the window. You watch the light slowly move across the floor and climb up onto your bare feet…and you feel its warmth and are wondering what this day will bring when there is a knock on the door. You tip toe to the window and peer out to see who is there. It is a friend from the neighborhood…a classmate from school and behind him stands a large man…with a gentle face and warm and caring eyes.

You answer the door and your friend steps in and gives you a hug…and tells you how sorry they are, then turns and motions for the large man outside to come in.

 He steps through the door and bends down, his large dark eyes moist, blinking back tears that seem to contradict the warm smile on his face. He introduces himself and tells you he is there to ask you if you would like to live in a home he has where others without parents already live.

He tells you that you will have your own bed, food every day and that you will attend school with all of your own friends, just the way you used to…and he tells you that you can stay there until you are grown…

You are afraid. Afraid that it isn’t true. Afraid to leave the only home that you have ever known, but as you look around at the emptiness, you know that you must go…and the gentle giant waits patiently while all of this runs through your mind. All that you own, fits into a basket, and so you put in in there, walking once around the perimeter of the four walls for perhaps the last time before following the man and your friend out the door and into the sunlight on a brand new day that suddenly seems brighter.

It is a bit of a hike, mostly uphill and you are not really sure where you are going and the apprehension you felt back in the home is there again…but mixed with a little wonder and a little excitement at the same time.

At the top of a hill in the distance, stands a long green building and the man points and tells you that is your new home. He reaches down, taking the basket from your hands and places it in his left hand and reaches out with his right, offering it to you. You hesitate and look up into his eyes for answers to the questions running through your young mind. The eyes staring back at you are kind and seem to say “its okay…it will be okay” and so you reach out your hand and his closes around yours completely, yet gently, and on you go to the long green house on the hill. Finally you are there and as you reach the edge of a yard worn nearly bare by little feet, he stops and points down and to the East to a particular building that you immediately recognize as your school…familiar ground that brings a sense of comfort to you immediately.

He leads you inside and as the door is opened, the sound of many voices escape into the morning air. There is laughter and the unintelligible mix of many conversations overlapping one another. Dozens of faces turn to look and suddenly there is silence…sentences never finished, suspended in time as all that was being said was forgotten due to the presence of a new face in the home…your face.

The gentle man takes your hand once again and leads you around the room introducing you to everyone. There are smiles and warm welcomes and offerings of food from a table with plenty for all. You sit with them and eat and answer many questions from many inquiring young minds before the meal is over and the man returns to show you the rest of the home.

He leads you to a room filled with beds and points to one upon which your basket rests…your basket on your bed. You sit down on the edge of the bed and look up at him and smile. You think about how much you miss your mother and father…about your home and you can feel the tears in your eyes again…but just then, three young children burst into the room and come to a stop right in front of you and ask you if you want to go outside to play. You wipe the tears from your eyes as you nod “yes” and follow them as they turn to go. You stop and look back one more time at the man standing behind you…he smiles…you smile… and in your heart, you know you have come home.

Ochimi Edward, founder and director of Butiki Children’s Home Passed away in late May, from complications stemming from an auto accident some months prior. But not before he took the hands of over 60 children without parents and lead them to his long green home on the hill…not before he forever changed the lives of those children, fulfilling his dream of a life with a higher purpose.