Door of Hope

Lets call her Grace. When she was eight months old she was finally rescued.  There is a Third World belief that if a man had sex with a virgin, he can be cured of aids.  Her mother sold Grace to men for money.  She was so badly damaged, she had to have a colostomy.  She was adopted to a loving family when she was three years old.  Some babies aren't as fortunate as Grace.  Some are abandoned in man holes, garbage cans, left on the sides of freeways, thrown out of hospital windows, tossed in the river, etc.  Some babies come with Aids and many of them don't survive at all.

In 1999 Cheryl Allen was serving as Pastor of her Baptist Church in a very scary part of the inner city. She had faith, that if she was serving her fellow man, she would be protected.  She felt that maybe if the babies could be left anonymously, more mothers would be willing to leave them. At that time there were 200 babies abandoned in the greater Johannesburg area each month and only about 60 of those survived.

Outer Door

 So she had a hole cut in the wall that went around her church. On the street side is a door that lifts up and on the inside is a metal box, or baby bin, large enough to hold a baby. She had a sensor installed so when a baby was left, a bell would ring inside the building. Cheryl prays over each baby as they come, that God will heal their minds and their traumatic pasts would be forgotten.

Cheryl Allen and the Baby Bin

To date, she has taken in over 1800 babies.  In the back of the church there is a special graveyard for the approximately 150 babies that didn't survive.

Sometimes the mothers come back and visit on the weekends but only if they can identify what their baby was wearing when it was left.  Sometimes a baby will go back home if the mother is able to take care of him/her.



One of Two Nurseries

Our LDS humanitarian missionaries here in South Africa have partnered with Cheryl and her church to help with some of their needs..  Among other things, the Church donated hundreds of layette kits that Church members had made.

Newborns

It was an amazing experience visiting the 'Door of Hope'.  Cheryl Allen is certainly on a 'humanitarian' mission of her own, blessing the lives of many, many people.  Here is a link to her website www.doorofhope.co.za