A Mother’s Touch
“I tell my children that they are not orphans. They have a family, they have a home and they are loved. That will always be here for them.”
Karatu is a small and remote village in Tanzania, Africa. Roughly three hours from the nearest city (which would be Arusha), Karatu is surrounded by some of the most breathtaking displays of scenic terrain that you will ever see on the African continent. The northern horizon of this village is blocked by the Ngorongoro Crater, which looms in the distance as a plush, green, 19,000 foot mountain, boasting of its once prehistoric volcanic glory, and now a dormant home to a host of wildlife that attracts tourists from around the world. South of Karatu lies Lake Manyara, which was said by Ernest Hemingway to be the “loveliest (lake)…in Africa.” Between the Ngorongoro Crater and Lake Manyara is a stretch several hundred kilometers wide of eloquent rolling hills and valleys out of which arise the tiny little mud and grass roofed homes of local villagers. In the middle of this stretch is the small dusty village of Karatu.
Karatu is a busy little village crowded with villagers on bicycles, motor cycles, women carrying their cargo on the tops of their heads, and children playing in the streets. The people of this region mostly come from the African tribe called Iraqw, an ancient tribe of Tanzania historically known for their agricultural and irrigation skills, dating as far back as the Iron Age.
There is a noticeable weight of poverty that bears its mark heavily in the expressions of these people as you pass by them. Today, poverty is very great all throughout Tanzania, and because very little has been done to preserve the well being of the Tanzanian people there have arisen grave consequences upon it’s society. HIV is widespread all throughout Tanzania, as a shocking amount of women turn to prostitution for income. In Karatu, a large number of people turn to alcohol in order to ease the weight of their circumstances. However, this only creates more problems with the increase of broken homes and abused or abandoned children.
Religious oppression doesn’t make things any easier, especially in small towns like Karatu. Though Christianity and Islam are the two strongest religions, witchcraft, taboos and folklore seems to have a stronger effect on the majority of these villagers. Perhaps, the worst alleged curse is the one that effects the family of a mother who had a child outside of marriage rituals. It is said that if a mother has a child outside of marriage that the child will bring a curse to the entire family. Therefore, a mother is faced with a sobering choice when her baby comes into the world. Either keep the baby and face family and societal banishment, or abandon the child in order to avoid curses and social suicide. As a result, the number of children who are abandoned by their parent(s) is devastating.
In 2003 a pastor and his wife from Arusha was visiting a church in Karatu. They spent the night in a local hostel where they had planned to rest and then make the three hour drive back to Arush the next morning. According to Warra Unka (the pastor’s wife), that night was cold and rainy. At some point in the night Warra heard a sound at the door of their guest house. She walked to the door and opened the it, and there laid a helpless baby boy. The child was only a couple of months old. Warra, being the warm and loving mother that she was, scooped the child into her arms and brought him to her husband. They discovered that the child was deathly ill, most likely due to being left in the cold rain, and so they rushed him to the nearest hospital. Warra never left the child’s side that night. The next morning her husband informed her that they had to leave for Arusha. So, Warra gave the doctors money and told them that when the child was better to let her know and she would come back and take the baby as her own. On the way back to Arusha, Warra remembers how grieved her heart was at the sight of this precious baby boy. She she wept for days over this child and that someone would reject such an innocent and beautiful baby boy.
Sadly, the child passed away several days after Warra left Karatu. However, that night added fuel to the fire in Warra’s heart to rescue orphans. Because of what they had seen in Karatu, Warra and her husband decided to move from Arusha to Karatu with the purpose of beginning an orphanage there.
Warra is known to most people as Momma Warra, which was the name that she inherited when she began to care for orphans. Ever since she was a little girl Momma Warra has had a heart for children. Even her husband found it difficult to understand Warra’s passion for orphans, and cautioned her about getting involved in a mission like orphancare that carried a tremendous amount of responsibility and very little income. However, after years of praying and seeking God, and especially after the effects of what had happened when she had last visited Karatu, Momma Warra moved with her husband to Karatu in order to birth Shalom Orphanage.
Shalom was birthed in a tiny little room not far from where the orphanage exists today. Momma Warra recalls the difficulty when she started. They had no room, no help, and no money. Yet, for 10 years God has been faithful to Momma Warra and Shalom Orphanage. The vision of Momma Warra has caught fire in Karatu and has impacted the community and even the government of Tanzania. It is especially meaningful when you understand the lives that have been rescued by this incredible woman. Today 65 orphans call Shalom Orphanage home. Many of them have been beaten, raped, molested, abandoned, thrown away in ditches, and buried alive. Yet, they are told by Momma every day that they are loved, they are not abandoned, they have a family, and they have a home. In an interview with Serving Orphans Worldwide this year, Momma told us that she doesn’t allow anyone to call her children orphans. “They are not orphans. They have a family, they have a home and they are loved. That will always be here for them.” Even at school the teachers refer to Shalom’s orphans as “Momma Warra’s children” or “Children of Shalom”. After ten years of existence these words are reinforced in the older children even more. Momma Warra emphasises this with the older children because she wants to remind them that even though they are getting closer to the day when they will leave the orphanage and start a career that, “they will always be able to call Shalom their home, they will always have a Momma waiting to see them, and they will always have room for them in the orphanage.”
The impact that Momma Warra’s philosophy has had on the children of Karatu is tremendous. Hope now warms the once chilly and dismal outlook of these children who once suffered horrific attrocities. Today, in the evenings local villagers and foot traffic along the road outside the orphanage can hear the joy filled worship resounding from 65 children and their caregivers as they sing about Jesus in their evening chapel service that happens everyday. Shalom Orphanage is a testament of God’s Love and the hope that God’s Love can restore to the hopelessness of human poverty.
