My journey of faith and the making of the “Mully” movie

OPINION:

I was born in 1949 in Machakos, Kenya, and grew up as an abandoned child and with a devastating life in my formative years. With the help of well-wishers, I was able to complete elementary education in 1966, but did not proceed to secondary owing to lack of school fees. As the firstborn in a poverty-stricken family of nine children, I grew up experiencing the worst form of poverty and suffering. But one day I experienced an encounter with God as my personal savior that changed the course of my life forever.

I worked as a casual laborer in various firms while upgrading my education through correspondence learning. I worked, exercising diligence and honesty, and used savings from the little income that came my way to set up my businesses. Through hard work and God’s immense favor, I continued to accumulate wealth and, as a multimillionaire with businesses in transportation and related commodities, was in a position to acquire everything money could buy.

My encounter with unfortunate street children in 1986 led to a radical decision, inspired by a divine calling as a Christian, to sell everything I had to salvage the lives of the suffering children and families — leading to the foundation of Mully Children’s Family (MCF). The full support and commitment of my wife Esther and our biological family, amidst their initial concerns at inception, has impacted immensely on the success of the ministry.

I never knew that my practical life experiences were a movie waiting to be cast to speak to the world and advance humanity. I had not done anything closer to making a movie before, and I had no idea what to expect out of it. But with courage and full of conviction, I resolved to take a step of faith to tell my story, which was initially documented in my autobiography book.

I directly guided the moviemaking and had to identify actors and support team that would represent sections of my real-life story in the movie. I pay tribute to members of my biological family who played key roles in making the movie, as well as members of the larger MCF fraternity whose roles as actors and support team made it possible for the inspiring production.

What motivated me to make a movie was the impact and different perspectives readers had on my first autobiography book, “Father to the Fatherless: The Charles Mulli Story,” written with Paul H. Boge in 2005. The book became the springboard through which the movie producer from Hollywood whom I met in 2013 learned about my difficult childhood after being abandoned at age 6, work history and financial success, radical forgiveness of parents, and later giving all the accumulated wealth to the poor children, women and men. The producer asked for my indulgence to make the “Mully” movie based on my real-life story and the ministry of the largest family in the world, the Mully Children’s Family. I surely did not know how this would come, but I am overwhelmed by the response, recognition awards and impact it has had in the life of people who participated in making it, as well as the hundreds of thousands of people who have viewed it in theaters or other venues.

Ultimately, I wanted the viewers to transform their thinking towards treating others humanely and seeing the potential in every human being in any part of the world, irrespective of background, origin, race, sex and color. The movie also champions the observance and adherence to the moral imperative to provide assistance to all people in need, regardless of faith and upholding national and international humanitarian standards and principles.

This movie is about my life and ministry anchored on Christian values, the power of prayer, and the exercise of faith towards others through transformative and compassionate action — preaching peace, unconditional love, forgiveness, humility, endurance, perseverance and unity, and not coercing any recipient of aid to change their faith. It reflects on the virtues of good stewardship and servant leadership, based on honesty, trustworthiness and determination.

My faith as a Christian has immensely grown in the ministry through making of the movie and its 2015 launch. It has provided a new platform in my life to extend and champion the Almighty God’s work and service to humanity. I have travelled to many places and received enormous and overwhelming feedback with viewers one-on-one, on television and radio shows, as well as through amazing and inspiring emails. The sentiments on the transformative impact of the movie to viewers through this feedback have strengthened my faith in the work I do to serve others through Mully Children’s Family.

“Mully” received several awards, including the prestigious “Friend of Adoption” from the National Council of Adoption in November 2017.

The viewer feedback I continue to receive confirms that people with different perspectives on the poor, those who see impossibilities in life, people of different faiths, and those with no faith have been inspired, and their mindsets, attitudes and worldviews transformed towards restoring hope in the lives of the needy in society. Continuous correspondence with the thousands of people whose lives have been inspired and encouraged is quite overwhelming. Many Christians have been inspired to believe they can be what they want to be through hard work, dedication, commitment and hope. The producer, as well as the marketer and distributor of the movie, became believers in Jesus Christ through salvation as they continued to make the movie.

Many people continue to request to visit the Mully Children’s Family programs in Africa to witness the true manifestation of God’s wondrous love as represented in the movie. To date, the programs have rescued more than 13,000 abandoned children and HIV/AIDS orphans from the streets.

• Charles M. Mulli, Ph.D., HSC, is Founder of Mully Children’s Family, real-life subject of “Mully” (2015), and author of “My Journey of Faith: An Encounter with Christ … and how He used me to spread His love to the poor” (Castle Quay Books, 2016). “Mully,” directed by Scott Haze, is distributed by For Good LLC, and has been promoted with the help of Focus on the Family and Fathom Events.