Christian Alliance for Children In Zambia

Bill and Bette Bryant Crisis Nursery

The Bill and Bette Bryant Crisis Nursery, located deep within one of the poorest shanty communities of Lusaka, is an oasis of hope. The roads to the home are narrow, filled with potholes and, in the rainy season, almost impassable, but the wall around the house is painted with laughing cartoon animals and circled with plants and flowers.

As many as fifteen toddlers fill the house with activity. A first time visitor would never guess that the animated children playing in the bright living room had been outcasts, most of them orphans or abandoned, before they found life-saving help at the Bill and Bette Bryant Crisis Nursery. The Nursery is a safe home, saturated with love, prayer and tender care, where young children can begin the process of healing.

Opened in November of 2003 to minister to toddlers, ages 2 – 4, this home is named in honor of Dr. Bill Bryant, the founding director of The Outreach Foundation. In 2000, during a visit to Zambia's first crisis nursery Dr. Bryant expressed his heart by saying, "This nursery is just our first one. I pray that we will open many more homes just like this one across Zambia, and throughout sub-Saharan Africa."

The crisis nursery is not an orphanage, but a critical step in the process of bringing an outcast child into a family. Dedicated professionals work to find extended family members and help them to be able to receive the needy child. This help includes counseling, small interest-free loans, milk and basic food supplements, and connecting the families to local church congregations. When it is not possible to find such family members, children are placed into Christian foster or adoptive homes.

From the web site of Christian Alliance for Children Everywhere