Missionary – Asifiwe Child Care Ministries Founder

 

 

“Something is missing. Someone needs to do something,’

and then I just had this impression on my heart,

‘That’s why you’re here. You have to do something about it.’” 

 

Julianne in the U.S.

 

 

Julianne Heilman is a founder of Asifiwe Child Care Ministries, a non-profit organization that provides a home for neglected children in Uganda. Asifiwe’s goal is to be “restoring hope and rebuilding lives through providing a loving family, an education with academic and practical life skills, medical care, as well as spiritual and emotional support.”

 

Asifiwe Child Care Ministries provides homes for children in Uganda who need one.

“We try to recreate an organic family unit.”

The houses Asifiwe creates have a house mother and kids – from older to younger.

“We usually hire single mothers. The children are brought into the program, and we create a family ranging in ages, ranging in boys to girls so that it’s more natural. They grow up learning how to interact with the opposite gender, with older people, younger people — cultivating that idea of caring for the people around you. They’re learning practical skills of how to run a house but also how to care for each other.”

Julianne gave an example through one story of how the children will come to Asifiwe. In one situation, “the grandmother was like, ‘I’m tired, and I can’t do this anymore.’ She was going to abandon them if we hadn’t been there. She was going to leave them. So that’s kind of how it goes. We’ve organized it so that they (the kids) can stay with us as long as they’re being educated. Legally, if they’re not being educated they have to leave an organization by 18 years old, but we’re able to educate them all the way up through college. When they finish college we help them get settled in a job, in an apartment or a home but always having access to come back and visit their family as any adult would.”

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But Julianne’s story began in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When Julianne was in “high school, I started to embrace that God has a specific purpose for my life, and embracing that was trying to figure out ‘What does that look like?’

 

I’ve always had this detachment from like the American dream — this house with this white picket fence and 2.5 kids. Everyone was like, ‘I’m going to go to college and get this great career and have my house.’ That was not satisfying to me.”

 

Julianne invested in different options like short term mission trips. In May of 2005, Julianne “went to Russia, and the Lord really touched my heart with the orphanage and seeing the loneliness and the longing in the eyes of the kids. Throughout high school I went on trips and got comfortable living outside of the U.S. It wasn’t a scary big world.”

 

Julianne then went to Philadelphia Biblical University, now known as Cairn University. She majored in education “because I knew I wanted to work with kids.” Julianne stayed out of debt through scholarships and a job at Wawa.

 

After other mission trips to different countries, in January of 2013, Julianne went on a short-term mission trip to Uganda.

 

“It was a horrible trip. We got stuck on the lake and I almost got hypothermia. It was pretty crazy. But coming back from that trip and being able to look at it and review it, I just felt peace that that could be a place to go. I was talking to my mom about the trip — and this is what gave me the go-ahead because my mom was really reserved, not sure if she was okay with my living in another country — but at that conversation she said, ‘I think you would really enjoy living there.’

 

“That gave me the excitement to try and investigate, and within nine months I was gone. Everything else was done. I had no debt; I was saving money the whole time, and people who had gotten to know me and my heart for children were already giving me money to support me. I never asked anyone for money. Since then I’ve never not had enough money for what I need. It’s the Lord’s blessing in all of that.”

 

In Uganda Julianne began “teaching English at the elementary school, and I was also directing. Since I had the most background in teaching — I just had my bachelor’s in education — I stepped in as the director. I got to know some of the kids’ stories, and was really like, ‘there’s a missing link for some of these kids.’

 

“They had a scholarship for education, and they were getting a good education. They were eating food at school. But where were they going after? What were they doing when they went home? Some of them were street kids, trash picking and selling metal to get money to eat. Some of them were living with a relative but were treated like house help. Some of them were living with grandparents who couldn’t take care of them.

 

“They needed somewhere to live, someplace to call home, a family to take care of them.”

 

That’s when the idea of children’s homes came to be. “The Lord brought me together with a Ugandan man who had the same sense that there was something missing in these kids’ lives. I wasn’t brave enough to do, but through joining with him and us praying together, the Lord brought people to support what we were doing. As we shared our vision, people got on board and excited about it. We took baby steps.

 

“We opened the first home in May of 2015, which was exactly ten years from the first time I felt the Lord calling me to care for children in Russia in 2005.”

 

Since 2017, Julianne has been working full time directing the children’s homes.

 

“We started with eight kids in one home, and it’s been growing and growing. Now we have 41 kids in three homes, and we’re about to expand them into four to five homes.”

 

Since our interview, Asifiwe Children’s Homes has opened a fourth home and a home for babies.

 

“I really do believe that that was the purpose that God created me for. To be the director of this amazing ministry is the byproduct of investing in children’s lives and loving them and allowing Him to use me as a vessel to channel His love for them. “

 

Living Purposefully

 

“My purpose is to share the love of Christ with these kids.”

 

Julianne’s living purposefully began when her mentality was transformed in high school.

 

“I really embrace the verse in Ephesians 2:10 where it says we are His masterpiece and He created us for good works which He ordained before we were even born. I really believed God created me for a specific purpose and He has a specific work for me to do for Him.”

 

She then began combining this feeling of purpose with her natural inclinations. “I started seeking that out: ‘What are the things that I feel God gave me that I can do well? What are things that come naturally that are fulfilling to me?’”

 

She then realized, “It was always involving kids. I love being with children, nurturing children. They make me happy, and it seems like they connect with me.”

 

Julianne then “started praying through that, realizing the Lord gave that to me as a gift because of the work He has for me to do. It’s cool to see it play out and see how it’s worked out.”

 

Then Julianne used her passion and her sense of purpose to make a difference. With the kids in Uganda, Julianne noticed that “’something is missing. Someone needs to do something’, and then I just had this impression on my heart like, ‘That’s why you’re here. You have to do something about it’.”

 

She relates her purpose to Jesus.

 

“God gave commandments for how to live, but then they asked Jesus ‘What’s the most important commandment?’ He summarized by saying ‘love God and love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ Love God. Love yourself and care for yourself. But then you’re supposed to love your neighbor the same way you care for yourself. You should be caring for the people around you, the person in need near you that you’re able to help. That’s your neighbor.

 

“That’s the underlying statement of what does it mean to live a purposeful life.”

 

Confidence in Her Purpose

 

Even in the doubts, Julianne’s sense of purpose prevailed.

 

“After I graduated, I was like ‘I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do.’ But even though I didn’t have answers, I still had this peace that God was going to show me what He wanted me to do and to be patient until it was the right moment, the perfect thing, perfect timing.”

 

Purpose is something “I go back to a lot especially when there’s challenging times. This past year there’s been a lot of trials and struggles, but there’s nothing else I can do with my life that will be satisfying. The option would be quit, go back to America and get a normal job amongst my family and friends, but I always go back to that calling that I have, that purpose that God has put on my life.”

 

Julianne feels she can’t quit when it’s hard because “even if I did, I might get rid of some of the stress, but it wouldn’t be satisfying. I know this is hard, but, in my heart, there’s no other options. There’s no easy way out because it wouldn’t be fulfilling the purpose that I have.

 

“It does get hard and challenging,” but Julianne truly believes we all have a specific purpose.

 

“I always have this solid foundation in my heart knowing that this is what I was created for. I really do think God has a purpose for each human being He creates. There’s a purpose for your life and it shouldn’t really be for yourself.

 

“I don’t think living with purpose means saving the world. It means having this perspective that you can help other people around you, whether it’s the people that you work with, whether it’s the family you’re raising or your parents that you’re taking care of when they’re old.

 

“Living with purpose has a different meaning for everyone, but there’s something in life you can do that’s beneficial to other people around you instead of only living for your own needs and taking care of yourself without thinking of others.”

 

Click here to sponsor a child, house mother or family through Asifiwe Child Care.

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