Printed in Canada
ISBN 978–1-927355–60–2 Soft Cover
ISBN 978–1-927355–61–9 E-book
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Edited by Marina Hofman Willard
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Scripture quotations are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Boge, Paul H., 1973-, author
Hannah’s hope : a Mully Children’s rescue story / Paul Boge.
ISBN 978-1-927355-60-2 (softcover)
1. Mulli, Hannah. 2. Orphans--Kenya--Biography. 3. Christian
biography--Kenya. 4. Orphans--Care--Kenya. 5. Mully Children’s
Family. 6. Mulli, Charles. I. Title.
HV1346.5.B64 2017 362.73092 C2017-906007-4
Mully Children’s Family (MCF) is a home in Kenya founded
and established by Charles and Esther Mulli in 1989 in response to
the desperate needs of street children, impoverished children,
and HIV/AIDS orphans. For more information,
visit www.MullyChildrensFamily.org.
foreword
Charles Mulli
My heart is continually moved when I see how children and young mothers suffer due to a lack of nutritious food, shelter, medical care, and parental love. Their lives are characterized by insecurity, abandonment, and rejection. Orphans in particular are the most vulnerable and marginalized group in Kenya.
The plight of orphans and street children caught my attention when a group of street boys organized themselves to steal my car in Nairobi in April 1986. This incident caused me to re-evaluate how I was spending my life. Up until then I had been successful in business and thought that was how I would continue. But God used the event to work in my heart. Three years later, on November 17, 1989, God anointed me to be a father to the fatherless. Together with my wife, Esther, I began to reach out to children in Kenya and show them God’s love.
Hannah’s Hope is the true story of one such orphan girl, whose problem was reported to me by one of the senior officers at MCF. I organized a mission to rescue her from Kisumu near Lake Victoria, where she lived with her younger sister and her elderly, poor grandparents, who could not adequately care for their needs. Hannah and her sister were very little girls and in a state of abject poverty, and I felt it was my joy to welcome her and her sister into Mully Children’s Family.
Hannah’s story is like that of many other children (over 13,000) whom Esther and I have rescued and reintegrated into communities over the last 28 years. It is part of our ongoing mission to reach out to many others yet to join our “world’s largest” family. This story shows the need to help the millions of others suffering around the world. I thank the Lord for Paul Boge and his passion in writing my books Father to The Fatherless, Hope to the Hopeless, and The Biggest Family in the World and for helping to edit My Journey of Faith. Paul has now written this great story of a little girl who became a daughter to Esther and me. We have seen Hannah grow through childhood to adulthood, full of determination, humility, obedience, and an ever-increasing love for God and people.
I encourage you to read this story of a girl who rose up from hopelessness to hopefulness. I trust it will encourage you to evaluate your own life as well. Without God, all things we do become nothing. Proverbs 19:17 says, “One who is gracious to a poor man lends to the LORD, and He will repay him for his good deed.”
– Dr. Ev. Charles Mutua Mulli, PhD, HSC
Founder and CEO, Mully Children’s Family
Chapter
one
Every person has their reason why they love the place they call home. For me, the reason I love Africa—the reason I hold the people and the land of Kenya so dear—is because everything here is exactly as it seems.
The smiles of strangers you pass on the road are genuine and deep. Villagers, as if responding to a centuries-old tradition handed down through the ages, take part in raising you as if you were their very own. The land, although at times difficult to cultivate and live off, still provides an incomparable calm with its vast expanse. Here, family is closer than the air you breathe and, of course, more important.
We have endless deserts, inspiring mountains, breathtaking valleys, and most famous of all, our captivating animals. My favourite are the giraffes—such peaceful creatures, with their long legs and necks that enable them to see life from a high and panoramic perspective that other animals do not have.
Africa is a land of unspoiled beauty. Of timeless cultures. And generations of authentic people. Nothing here pretends to be something it isn’t. Africa is what it is.
And I find great comfort in things being as they appear to be.
I grew up in Umer, a small village in Nyanza Province near Lake Victoria. There’s no reason for you to have heard about Umer. Few people have. It’s like many other small towns all around the world, a place that holds special meaning for those of us who had the privilege of experiencing the precious moments of our early years here.
I grew up poor, but I had no reason to notice. Happy children rarely do. If someone had come up to me and told me that we were poor, I would not have understood. I suppose different people measure wealth in different ways. In my heart, we were rich because I had a mother, a father, a twin sister, and another little sister as well. I even had grandparents. And to make life more incredible than one could imagine possible, I had a place to sleep at night.
It never occurred to me I needed anything more.
Each family in the community lived in its own hut. Each parent had his or her own job. Whenever possible, we supported each other by buying from one another. Whenever we did not have enough to eat, we could ask our neighbours for help. We did the same for them whenever we were asked to share. In this way, the community looked out for each other. You had a sense of being together. You felt you belonged.
We could have had more food to eat. Nicer clothes to wear. Bigger places to live in. But it never occurred to us that we needed these things, or even that they existed.
You can’t miss what you don’t know.
As a young child, I loved playing hide-and-seek with my twin sister, Leah, in the cornfields. We laughed as we chased each other around the tall stalks. To us, they seemed like trees, towering high above, reaching to the skies. My mother kept a watchful eye over us while she worked as a casual labourer in the fields. She always took us with her, making a practice of living together with us in every situation. It was not until years later that I understood why keeping us close was important.
Leah and I often lay down on our backs, gazing up at the billowing clouds. The massive puffs of white filled the Kenyan sky, looking like an unending series of islands had been created from one end of the earth to the other. It caused me to wonder how out of all the wind and storms and rain, the clouds could look so perfectly organized. How order could come from something that appeared so random.
We lived