By Marcia Moore
SELINSGROVE — Winfield native Beverly Mitchell may be a long way from home, but she’s right where she wants to be.
For years after graduating from Lewisburg High School in 1966, Mitchell worked in the city of Philadelphia’s health department.
She returned home to care for her father in 1998 when her mother died unexpectedly. Following her father’s death a few years later, Mitchell traveled to Uganda on a mission trip with Christ Community United Methodist Church to prisons in Uganda and Kenya.
It was there she discovered young children of women inmates often live with their mothers behind bars, some for several years.
A second “short-term” trip in 2006 led to a more permanent stay when she and fellow missionary Janet Morrison developed a plan to free the children while helping them maintain a relationship with their jailed parent.
Gateway International Missions in Taylorsville, N.C., assisted the pair in opening a home in February 2007 in Uganda, and today Children of Promise has 17 residents ranging in ages 2 1/2 to 14. Six other children have been reunited with their mothers.
Six months after the home opened, Mitchell sold her home in Winfield and returned to Africa.
“When I saw the babies and children living in the prisons here, God touched my heart to ask if we could open a home for them to stay until their mothers were able again to care for them,” she said. “Never would I have thought of myself venturing far from home and never as an ambassador for Christ, but here He sent me.”
The mission statement of the home is to provide care to children of female inmates who have no other relatives to meet their physical, medical, emotional, educational and spiritual needs.
In addition to caring and educating the children, Mitchell said, the aim is to foster the bond between mother and child and extended families when possible.
Depending on the proximity of the jail to the home, children visit with their mothers anywhere from monthly to four times a year.
Christ Community Pastor Barry Robison said Mitchell wrestled with the decision to leave her home and move to Africa, but was unable to ignore “God’s call.”
“She sees this as a way of sharing the blessings she’s received,” he said. “She’s a giving, humble person who doesn’t like the limelight, but she’s also joyful and upbeat.”
In addition to her work with the children, Mitchell assists in medical clinics throughout the region as well.
“We run into needs everywhere,” she said.
It’s not uncommon for people to knock at the gate of the home asking for money to allow a child to attend school or receive medical care or food.
“We see children and old people with significant medical problems needing care beyond what a nurse can provide. We see children with no food, no clothing, no adult assistance.” Mitchell is grateful for the help she’s received from family members, friends and the Christ Community congregation.
“Last month I ran into a young girl who was moved from her village to take care of her grandmother. As a result she has not attended school in over a year,” she said. “The grandmother and this girl have no money and live off food she can gather from a neighbor’s field or food passersby give her.”
