The Orphan Father of Bristol

In 1836, George Mueller opened a small rented house on Wilson Street in Bristol, England, to care for thirty orphans. He had almost no money. What he had was an unshakable conviction that the God who promises to sustain the righteous would do exactly that.

Over the next sixty years, Mueller housed and fed over ten thousand orphans across five large homes on Ashley Down — and he never once asked a single person for a donation. Not one fundraising letter. Not one public appeal. He prayed, and provision came. One morning, the children sat at tables with empty plates and no food in the kitchen. Mueller bowed his head and gave thanks for what the Almighty would provide. Minutes later, a baker knocked at the door with fresh bread he had felt compelled to bake through the night. A milk cart broke down outside the orphanage moments after, and the driver offered his entire load rather than let it spoil.

Mueller's heart was, as the psalmist describes, "steady, trusting in the Lord." He was not afraid of bad news. He did not hoard what came to him but distributed freely to the poor. When he died in 1898 at ninety-two, his personal estate totaled less than eight hundred pounds — yet he had channeled over one and a half million pounds to those in need.

Psalm 112 paints a portrait of the one who fears the Lord and delights in His commandments. George Mueller spent a lifetime sitting for that portrait.