TWO missionaries from Warrington have become the closest thing to mums for orphans in Mozambique, who are forced to live in a crowded, dark and leaky tin shack.

Barbara Inman, aged 24, of Stockton Heath, and Mavis Wright, aged 56, from Orford, have been so touched by the living conditions of the orphans of Maforga that they have been travelling to and from Mozambique raising money.

They returned there on Tuesday for a year-long mission, having raised more than £2,000 for new housing.

The children in the orphanage, who are aged between three and seven, have been eating, playing and sleeping in a dark shack which leaks when it rains and is set in the snake-infested bush, miles from shops and amenities.

Many of the children have either been abandoned or their parents have died from the AIDS epidemic which is currently raging through Africa.

Barbara, who has worked with the children for 16 months, particularly remembers one two-year-old boy who was found abandoned by a railway track and was severely malnourished.

She helped nurse him back to health and he was eventually adopted by a social services worker in Mozambique.

Barbara is also looking forward to seeing a little girl whom she named and nursed to health.

"The baby came and we admitted her because she had no-one to care for her and we didn't have any name or birth certificate, so we had to guess her age," Barbara said.

"I named her Niasha, which is a Shona word meaning Grace. I was looking after her, just making sure she was healthy.

"I've become very close to some of them. It was very hard to leave them last time so it will be nice to see them all again. When Mavis came back they all sent me letters and told her to bring sister Barbara back."

The funds, which have been raised through Emmaus Church, will go towards completing a new home for the youngsters, which will have windows and which will be clean and safe.

If anyone would like to donate money to the Maforga Orphanage they can call Emmaus Church Centre on 656447.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.