Sister Stan Terese Mumuni, founder of the Nazareth Home for God’s Children in Yendi, Ghana, shares her passion for caring for “spirit children” born with deformities, who are sometimes victims of violence fueled by cultural beliefs.

In some rural parts of Ghana, children born with physical deformities are considered to be “spirit children.” Many of them, due to cultural practices, are abandoned, ostracized, and in some cases killed, as they are considered portents of bad fortune for the community.

Sister Stan Terese Mario Mumuni, a Ghanaian nun of the Marian Sisters of Eucharistic Love (MASEL) Congregation, has become a beacon of hope for these rejected children. She founded an orphanage (Nazareth Home for God’s Children) at Sang, in the Yendi Diocese of Northern Ghana to welcome and cater to children with deformities, irrespective of religion, class or ethnic background.

In an interview with Vatican News, Sr. Mumuni describes her passion for children, her love for God, and her important work of bringing about cultural change, one child at a time.

Bringing life

Sister Mumuni said she got into the apostolate of caring for “spirit children” because that is how she felt God’s call to her. She explained that even after becoming a nun in 1994, she still felt that God wanted her to do more. And hearing about the plight of the children born with deformities in Yendi, she decided to involve herself to “bring life” to the children.

“Spirit children”

Sister Mumuni explained that the practice of violence against children born with deformities dates back many years in Yendi. The indigenes - a mixture of Christians, Muslims and traditional worshippers – are still strongly influenced by some ritual and cultural practices that lead them to believe that people with deformities are evil, and as such, are responsible for any misfortune in the area.

She said children and even older people with disabilities such as deafness, mutism, epilepsy, lameness or hydrocephaly (a condition in which there is an accumulation of fluid in the brain causing swelling of the head) have been unfortunate victims of this practice.

Seeing the situation, Sister Mumuni said she was moved to get involved because the people “need God” and “the children need to be saved from their hands.”

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