Louisville preacher helping hundreds of orphans in Africa

Dr. Gardiner Gentry founded Malawian orphanage in 2003

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —

When my husband and I decided to adopt, we had no idea Kentucky had a very special connection to an orphanage on the other side of the world, in Malawi.

We were years into the process when we learned the founders of our daughters’ orphanage, Gardiner and Alice Gentry, lived in Louisville.

“The children were street children but they lived behind those stores in boxes, when I found that out, I started taking medicine and helping, some were ate up with scabies, wouldn’t even come out on the street, lay there until they die,” said Dr. Gardiner Gentry, remembering his first trip to Malawi in 1999.

“I’m looking out that window, and I see smoke from a thousand villages, and I’m thinking all those people there and nobody to help them.”

Gentry, a preacher at Victory Baptist Church in Louisville, couldn’t stop thinking about the orphans he saw.

UNICEF estimates nearly 2 million Malawians are considered to be “vulnerable children” - many have lost one or both parents to AIDS.

So Gentry and his wife, Alice, moved to Malawi to build an orphanage. By 2003, Good Samaritan Children’s Home was up and running.

It was originally designed for 50 children. Now more than 120 live there. And the numbers continue to grow.

“So they came to us and said please can you start taking infants, we didn’t want to because it takes more workers, more time, more doctors - but we did it - and you have two of them as a result of that.”

Francisca and Prisca came to the children’s home when they were 2 years old. Their triplet sister and biological mother died shortly after childbirth.

They needed a mom and dad. And we needed them.

The girls are home with us in Louisville now, thanks to what Dr. Gentry had set into motion 15 years ago.

Gentry has helped start 703 churches in Malawi. He and his wife live back in Louisville, but he recently traveled to the orphanage to help build more, making room for more babies.

“I’m 82 years old now and should have been retired a long time ago but I just can’t do it.”

To learn more about my journey and international adoption, check out OffScriptMom.com.

To learn more about local foster care and adoption, visit WednesdaysChild.com.