Lillian Trasher was born in 1887 and grew up in North Carolina and Georgia. As a young lady, she was very artistic and was planning to get a job as a sketch artist at a newspaper in Atlanta. On the train heading there, she met a lady named Mattie Perry who ran Faith Orphanage in North Carolina. Miss Perry was looking for an assistant and asked Lillian to consider it and pray about it.
Lillian continued to Atlanta, however, determined to get the newspaper job. She met the man making the decision about who to hire and he was pleased with her work and wanted to hire her; however, he got sick, and due to some miscommunication, the job went to someone else. Lillian took it as a sign that God wanted her elsewhere: specifically, at the orphanage with Miss Perry. Lillian stayed there for several years and learned to run things, care for children, and live by faith, trusting God to meet their needs.
Lillian thought her next role was going to be wife to Tom Jordan, a pastor. Shortly before the wedding, however, she went to listen to a missionary and felt called to serve God in Egypt. Tom did not want to go to Egypt, and Lillian ended up breaking off her engagement. She headed to Pittsburgh for a mission conference, but due to a money mix-up, had to spend the night in Washington with friends of friends while she waited for the rest of the money. A missionary and his wife from Assiut, Egypt, were also staying at the house. After learning Lillian’s plan, the missionary told her that if she could get to Egypt, she could stay and work with them.
Within three months, God had provided the money Lillian needed to get to Egypt, as well as a travelling companion: her sister, Jennie. On October 8, 1910, they set sail for Egypt, wondering what God had in store for them. A few months after arriving, Lillian went to pray with a dying mother who pleaded with Lillian to take her baby daughter and care for her. Lillian took the dirty, starving baby home and began to care for her. It was a challenge, because the baby (soon named Fareida) had trouble eating and cried most of the night. After two weeks, the rest of the missionaries in the compound had enough of not sleeping and told Lillian that she had to take the baby back. But back where? The mother was dead and no one else wanted the baby, especially since she was a girl.
Lillian agreed to bring the baby back, but she would go with her. She rented a small house and her sister joined her in caring for Fareida. Soon, word got around about the foreigners who would care for orphan children, and two more were added to her little family, then another, and soon she was “Mama Lillian” to 8 children. Since she was no longer connected to the mission base, she had no income or support, but God always provided for her and the children, often through the charity of her neighbours. By 1915, she had 50 orphans and desperately needed more room. God again provided and she was able to buy additional land. She and the older children learned to make bricks in their own kiln and constructed the necessary buildings.
By 1923, the orphanage was housing 300 people. As well as the orphans, Lillian had started to take in widows, who needed a place to go and were happy to help with the work in exchange for a home (and sometimes the ability to stay with their children), as well as blind people who also had nowhere else to go and no one to care for them.
Initially, Lillian had gone around raising funds as needed, but eventually she could not do that and care for the children, so she learned to trust God for their needs, and God always provided in His own ways: once through an anonymous donor who sent a truck load of food one morning when there was nothing to eat in the house; another time through an Egyptian friend whose daughter was engaged and sent money to share the joy. My favourite story: During World War II, there was a lack of everything in Egypt. There were more than 800 children in the orphanage, almost no food, and no way to get more. Then the American Ambassador contacted Lillian for a meeting. He told her that a Red Cross relief ship was detoured to Alexandria because of the fighting in Greece and was told to dump its cargo before heading out to sea under cover of darkness. One of the sailors, who had supported Lillian’s work and prayed regularly for the orphanage, had convinced the captain to unload the ship and give the supplies to the orphanage. When Lillian was wondering how to pay to ship a warehouse of supplies to Assiut, the ambassador said that he was going to pay the shipping costs.
Lillian died in 1961 at the age of 74. She had cared for thousands of orphans and widows. James 1:27 says, “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” That was Lillian’s job: to care for the widows and orphans and others who had no one to care for them.
It is easy to see God’s sovereignty in Lillian’s life as He continued to put her in the right place at the right time: on the train to meet Miss Perry; the home in Washington to meet the missionary from Egypt; the home of the dying woman to care for the baby and start what would become her life’s work. We also see His faithfulness in providing when it seemed impossible and in ways that we may not expect!
by Miss Dorothy
