Lillian Trasher

Lillian Hunt Trasher was born on September 27, 1887, in Jacksonville, Florida. Her father was a hard man, and her mother was a woman of faith. She grew up in poverty in the South, with a sense of the plight of those who had nothing. At the age of fourteen, she was converted and soon felt a call to the mission field. She was a woman of determination, and she began to work in a Pentecostal mission. She became engaged to a young man, but she broke it off, because she felt that God was calling her to Africa.

In 1910, at the age of twenty-two, she sailed to Egypt, with no real backing from a mission board and a few dollars. She had met a missionary on a visit to a Pentecostal church in Egypt, and she had written to them. She was accompanied by her sister, who later returned home. She went to the town of Assiut, in Upper Egypt, where she began to take in orphans. It was the beginning of the work for which she is known. A dying woman, who was ill, asked her to take her baby, and the woman died soon after. She took the infant into her home.

She soon had a number of children in her care, and the work grew. She rented a house, and she begged for food and funds. She had no income, and she depended on the gifts of the people. She prayed that God would meet the needs. The orphanage grew from a few babies to hundreds, and in the end to thousands. Many of the children were girls who had been abandoned or who were in danger of being sold. She cared for them as a mother. She was known as Mama Lillian and as the Nile Mother. The children called her Mama.

She lived in the orphanage with the children and slept in a small room. She ran the place with an iron will and a loving heart. She raised the children in the Christian faith and trained them in the skills of a trade or in school. She built dormitories, a school, a hospital and a church. She also was a source of strength to the people of Assiut, and she was well loved in the community. The Muslim leaders in the town came to respect her. The government honored her with a medal. The orphanage remained open throughout the First World War and the Second World War, and through the troubles of the Egyptian revolution.

She faced many difficulties. She was often short of money, and she lived on the edge of ruin. She also was subject to illness and exhaustion, and she had a number of operations. She was sometimes criticized by missionaries and by supporters for her independence. She did not marry and gave her life to the children. She was a woman of faith, but she also was a woman who was strong-minded and demanding. She wrote letters to churches in America to raise funds.

She returned to the United States only a few times in the fifty years that she spent in Egypt. She died on December 17, 1961, in Assiut, at the age of seventy-four. Thousands attended her funeral. By the end of her life, she had cared for more than ten thousand children. The orphanage that she founded is still in operation. Her life shows what can be done by a young woman with little money but with a great love for the helpless.