From Catonsville to Uganda, faith and loss inspires mission of hope

When Ann Bartlinski was in Uganda in January 2025, visiting and delivering food to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Masaka, she saw a mother with a very sick child.

“The mother begged me for help for her child,” Bartlinski said. “It was quite clear he was quite near death. His mom kept begging me to help her in some way. There was nothing more to be done, I said. She wouldn’t stop.”

Yet Bartlinski knew all too well what the mother was going through. In 2013, her 6-year-old daughter Teresa, adopted from China, died from congenital heart disease. Teresa, beloved by everyone in her home parish of St. Mark in Catonsville, had heart issues that would not have been fatal if she had received proper care while an orphan in China, her mother said.

“At that moment, I could feel Teresa with me saying ‘Mom, you have to help this child,’ ” Bartlinski said – so she did.

After miraculously surviving a three- to four-hour journey to another hospital, the young boy, whose name she learned was Josiah, was given medical care and started on nutrition. He is now 4 years old and loves riding his bicycle.

“It’s amazing the similarities between the two,” Bartlinski said, of Josiah and her daughter.

Bartlinski, who serves as director of orphan care and medical intervention programs at Open Hearts for Orphans – a Florida-­based nonprofit committed to helping orphans and vulnerable children throughout the world – quickly recognized that St. Joseph’s Hospital was not properly equipped to help the boy or the other children in its care, and that they “deserve so much better.”

She met with hospital staff and Bishop Severus Jjumba of the Diocese of Masaka, Uganda, who oversaw the hospital, to learn more about what was needed, then brought the findings back to the board of Open Hearts for Orphans.

“(Bartlinski) called me and said ‘Lisa, God is telling us to do this for this hospital,’ ” said Lisa Murphy, founder and CEO of Open Hearts for Orphans. “It is a waiting room to die. They had nothing. There was so little for these kids.”

In February, the result of those conversations became reality: St. Joseph’s Hospital opened its fully refurbished Josiah’s Hope Pediatric Ward. The $60,000 project included structural modifications, electrical and plumbing upgrades and new paint, with the goal of providing quality care to the children, many of them orphans, in the area. Through the generosity of their donors, the nonprofit was able to raise the funds to have the work done, Murphy said.

“This is the biggest project we’ve tackled to date,” Murphy said. “The Lord willing, we will get it all done.”

A second phase is now underway to raise $50,000 to purchase state-of-the-art medical equipment including incubators, ventilators, echocardiogram machines, defibrators and X-ray machines. A third phase will help fund more staffing and salaries.

Tackling ambitious projects is nothing new to Bartlinski. After Teresa’s death, the family worked with the nonprofit Little Hearts Medical to open Love You More Heart Home in Beijing, China, in 2013, with the goal of helping children receive proper care for cardiac diseases.

“We took surgeons to Beijing to teach them how to perform the complex surgeries and then they came to the states to learn,” Bartlinski said.

Now known as Open Hearts for Orphans, the nonprofit continues to help orphans around the world, though it has become harder to operate in China since the pandemic, as the government no longer allows it.

“God led us to other parts of the world that need help,” Bartlinski said. “That’s how I got to Uganda.”

Bartlinski and her husband, Ed, are the parents of four biological children and seven girls adopted from China. Each of their adopted daughters has medical issues, she said, and though she does not have a medical degree, she knows more about multiple health issues – from heart disease to bone – than the average person. “What’s normal to us is probably considered extreme to other families,” Bartlinski said, with a dry laugh.

Everyone, she said, is “doing wonderfully,” and the family, which now resides in Florida, visits Catonsville often to see their two oldest children and their families.

“God presented this life to us. I never knew I needed seven adoptive girls from China. It is what God wanted us to do. It’s been a blessing. Really a blessing,” Bartlinski said. “That’s not to say I’m not tired. I’m extremely tired. It’s a lot of work. Hard, very rewarding work because we are doing it for God.”

She is confident that Open Hearts for Orphans will successfully meet its goals for the Josiah’s Hope Pediatric Ward.

“God put me there at the right moment to see the child that was the inspiration for this,” Bartlinski said. “It is all led by God. I know God would not present me this as a need without the means.”

Email Katie V. Jones at kjones@CatholicReview.org

Learn more at openheartsfororphans.org.

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