What Daily Life Looks Like at Tender Love Orphan Care

Morning: waking as a family

The day at Tender Love begins early and gently. Children wake, wash and dress, older ones lending a hand to the little ones, before the household gathers to greet the day together. Our home sits among green hills and gardens just outside Jinja, and mornings here are cool and bright, filled with the ordinary bustle of a big family getting ready.

There is a security in routine that matters enormously for children who have known upheaval. Knowing exactly what the morning holds, the same faces, the same table, the same kind hands, tells a child, before a single word is spoken, that they are safe and that they belong.

Prayer and worship

As a Christ-centred home, we begin with prayer. Faith is not an add-on to our week. It is the thread running through the whole day, from a whispered morning prayer to songs of worship that fill the room. Our children are growing up knowing they are loved by God and by the family around them.

For children who have experienced loss, worship is quietly healing. It is where many of them first come to believe, deep down, that their story is not over and that they are precious. You can read more about that founding conviction on our Our Story page.

Mealtimes together

Few things say "family" like a shared meal, and mealtimes are a highlight of every day. Nutritious food (rice, beans, greens, fresh vegetables and, on special days, meat and a cold drink) is served to every child. A full plate is one of the simplest, clearest ways we tell our children they will always be provided for.

Meals are also where the day is shared: the small victories, the funny stories, the plans for the afternoon. Around the table, 50 children are simply brothers and sisters.

Off to school

Education shapes each day and each future. Every child at Tender Love is supported to go to school, equipped with the uniform, books and bag they need to walk in with their heads held high. Learning is one of the surest paths out of hardship, and we treat it as a priority, not a luxury.

Bodies like World Vision Uganda describe education as one of the highest-impact investments in a child's life. We watch it happen in real time: shy new arrivals becoming confident learners with real ambitions.

Chores and the garden

Afternoons bring homework and chores. In a family this size, everyone pitches in, and that is by design. Tending the vegetable gardens, helping in the kitchen and caring for younger siblings teach responsibility, patience and the quiet pride of a job done well.

The gardens do double duty: fresh food for our table, and real, hands-on lessons in growing, saving and providing that our children will carry into adulthood.

Room to create

Childhood needs colour, and we make room for it. Art, music, drawing and craft give our children a way to express what words sometimes cannot, and to discover talents they never knew they had. A lion painted in bright yellows, a home drawn from memory. Every piece is a small act of hope.

Encouraging creativity is part of raising whole children, not just fed and schooled, but seen, celebrated and free to dream. You can meet some of the children whose gifts we get to nurture every day.

Time to be children

And then there is play, the heartbeat of every childhood. A game of football on the dirt yard, a burst of laughter, a chase around the mango tree. For children who have carried heavy things, play is not a distraction from healing; it is part of how healing happens.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child names play as a right of every child, and UNICEF champions it as essential to development. At Tender Love, it is simply one of the happiest parts of the day, the sound of children being children, which is exactly what every one of them deserves.

The people who make it home

A house becomes a home because of the people in it. Tender Love was founded by Pastor Dominic and Rachael Muggaga, who felt called to open their family to children with nowhere else to turn. They raise the 50 children alongside their own four biological children, not as staff running a facility, but as parents in a very large household.

Around them is a small team of trusted carers who cook, teach, comfort, bandage knees and sit with a child who is having a hard day. Consistency is everything here: the same loving adults, present day after day, are what turn a group of children into a family and a building into a home. It is unglamorous, faithful work, and it is the heart of everything we do.

Evening and rest

As the light softens over the hills, the day winds down the way it began, together. A shared evening meal, homework finished, a time of prayer and thanks, and then rest. Children are tucked in safe, warm and known by name, ready to wake and do it all again tomorrow. There is deep comfort, for a child who has known uncertainty, in a bedtime that is always the same.

What your support makes possible

Everything you've seen in this day, the full plates, the school bags, the paint and the footballs, the safe beds, is made possible by people who choose to stand with these children from near and far. A day at Tender Love runs on faithful, month-by-month provision: food, school fees, medical care, clothing and the wages of the carers who make it a home.

That is exactly what child sponsorship provides. A regular monthly gift brings the stability we need to plan ahead and keep our promises to every child, and it connects a child in Jinja with someone, somewhere, who has chosen to care. If a day like this has moved you, sponsoring a child is the most direct way to help make tomorrow just as secure.

A family, not an institution

If there is one thing we hope you take from this walk through our day, it is this: Tender Love is a home, not an institution. We don't run shifts around children; we raise them, alongside our own four biological children, as one large Christian family.

That distinction shapes everything, from the way meals are shared to the way a crying child is comforted. Children here are not case files or numbers. They are known: their favourite foods, their fears, the subjects they love at school, the dreams they whisper at bedtime. Being fully known, by people who are not going anywhere, is what lets a child finally relax and simply grow up.

To understand how we came to care for these children, and what safe orphan care looks like in our town, read our companion piece on our orphanage in Jinja, Uganda. And if this day in the life has warmed your heart, we would love for you to become part of the story, or simply get in touch and say hello.