Lillian Trasher Orphanage - Assiout

Last week, I had the chance to go to a town called Assiout to the Lillian Trasher Orphanage. I think the orphanage was started 100 years ago by a Christian lady named Lillian Trasher if you couldn't get guess from the name of the orphanage. She came to Egypt in the beginning of the 1900's after calling off her wedding 10 days before the wedding. That is pretty intense if you ask me. So, she is engaged to this guy and 10 days before her wedding, she feels like she is called to Egypt and he wasn't so she broke it off and headed for Egypt. She funded and built this orphange with the help provided by churches in Egypt and around the world. In Egypt, it is illegal to adopt, so there were a lot of children without homes and Lillian started just getting babies and taking care of them. At one time they had 1200 children in the orphanage but now there are only about 200 kids because there a couple more orphanages in Egypt and not only one option anymore.

It was really cool being able to see how the orphanage is run and seeing the amazing facilities they have there. It is really cool because the orphanage is affliliated with the Assemblies of God and is run by Christians and the kids are brought up in a Christian environment. But like all things, the orphanage is not perfect and has its flaws. One of the major downfalls is that the girls in the orphanage are very secluded and are very naive when it comes anything going on in the world outside the orphanage. They hardly ever mix with the boys and are pretty much kept just with each other....and they are starving for attention. When we got there, they just completely flocked around us. Like seriously, there were 10 girls all huddled around each of us and they were all just ask us our names and touching us nonstop. They were all so sweet though and just kept telling us how beautiful we are and that they want to come to America so bad. I actually almost got Matthew married off because I was telling the girls about my family and when I got to talking about my brothers they were like "Oh yes, you have a brother....Matthew!! You must bring him to Egypt!!" Hahaha...too bad he's only 12. Not quite marrying age yet:)

Another thing that bothered me about the orphanage is that these girls don't have very many options for a future outside of the orphanage when they are old enough to leave. Once they turn 18 they have the option to leave (which they are not encouraged to do) or to stay at the orphanage and work there by helping taking of the younger kids, cleaning, cooking, etc. It used to be that pretty much the only chance the girls had of leaving the orphanage was to marry a boy from the orphanage. In Egypt it used to be that if you were an orphan, it was pretty much the lowest class so the orphans would just marry each other. But, now its not the same and a lot of the boys in the orphanage are marrying girls outside the orphanage and so less girls in the orphanage are leaving because less are getting married. There are old ladies still at the orphanage who have never left and they have just spent their lives there. These girls go to school, but most don't try very hard because they don't see the point because they don't see a future outside the orphanage. They aren't taught any other skills that they would need to survive in the "real world" and they are so sheltered that it would be such a culture shock if they were to move to a city like Cairo.

This is one of reasons why Jen brought Azza and Manal to work with her. They had begged her for a long time to come and work with her and finally she agreed and brought them to Cairo 6 months ago. Manal told me that when she was in the orhanage, whenever she heard that Jen was coming to the orphanage for a visit, she would get so excited and she would always go and find Jen. So now Jen is teaching them English and office skills so that after 2 years they will be able to go out and find a real job. Jen has actually been in contact with some missionaries in Dubai and Azza might go work for them and live with them as a nanny. So, this is a really good opportunity for her and a chance to travel and see other parts of the world. This is so awesome what Jen is doing for these girls and the amount of patience she has is amazing! But, she can't hire every girl in that orphanage. What they need is someone who can come in and teach them English, help motivate them to do well in school, and teach them basic skills (like how to use computers). My heart just goes out to these girls because they deserve a chance to live their lives. Please keep these girls in your prayers and that God would just send the right people into their lives to bring encouragement.