3 New Children

We’ve been told there are over 200 desolate children living on the streets of a town near Arba Minch, several hours south of where we live. The 8 most desperate of whom were supposed to come and move into our children’s home. We didn’t know when they would come but were awaiting a phone call that would inform us they were coming. Sure enough, after a long, typical, exhausting Friday Noah and I had just sat down to watch Deus Ex Machine, as we are working our way through season 1 of lost, the phone rings and Henok (Organization Director) informs us that the children are on the way and close to Soddo. Feeling inspired from Jack Shephard, I was ready to go and save some children! I had no idea what was about to happen.

We grabbed our nurse, Sister Hana, who has been an absolute lifesaver through this whole process and started walking up to the hospital where we were to meet Henok and the new children to go through their medical examinations. As we walked Henok’s car happened to drive past us and he stopped and I hopped in to join him in meeting up with the truck that was supposedly close to Soddo, carrying the children to us. We could not go pick up these children because there are no roads that even allow our cars to go to the area these children are from.

We drove 30-45 min through the countryside, a large portion of which was through cow pastures with no real recognizable road, neither Henok, the driver, nor I really knew where we were going, but we would stop and ask random farmers where this town was that we were supposed to meet them in and they would point and so we’d drive in that general direction. Eventually, somehow, we made it to the small town where the truck was passing through. We stopped the car and waited. After 10 minutes or so we see a cloud of dust in the distance and a big Isuzu truck bumping along the road towards us.

As the truck creeped closer I noticed objects hanging off the side and back of the truck bed. “What’s in the back of the truck?” I naively asked… “Those are people,” Henok said matter of factly. Sure enough they were people. As the truck stopped next to us I quickly counted one half of the truck and counted over 30 people, not counting any children who’s heads were below the truck bed railing. There were between 60-70 people crammed in the back of this truck who have driven all day. Somewhere in there were 8 children who desperately needed a new home.

We got out of our truck and waited as out of the middle of the crowded truck bed come 5 children, passed through the mob, from person to person and over the railing and into my arms. I couldn’t help but be reminded of times I’ve met up with people to make a transfer of items in this fashion, but these were not items or things, they were children.

We took them back to the hospital, as we drove we learned (from a social worker who accompanied them) there were only 5 because the remaining 3 who were supposed to come were too sick and fragile to even move and they feared they would die during a full day of transportation. We are praying these 3 and others will come to us soon. During the drive the children were very quiet, making no eye contact, scared to death.

We immediately prayed over the children. Asking the Lord for wisdom in discerning how to care for these children. Miraculously most of the medical tests came back negative, save a few parasites and some bugs that have infested the little boys hands and feet.

We ended up taking 2 of the girls, Agine, age 6 and Asnakish, age 7 and a little boy, Faris, age 4 back to our orphanage to remain in country. Stephne took the younger children back to her orphanage, which cares for infants, hopefully to be adopted into a loving family soon.

As we drove back to CCC, one of the girls screamed the entire way, at the top of her lungs, with no abandon, in complete panic… her sister sat next to her crying softly and the youngest of them all, a boy, sat completely emotionless in the 3rdseat. Noah, Hana and I tried our best to calm them down but there was nothing we could do.

The one continued to scream until we lifted her out of the car and took her to the shower and gave her a shower and put new clothes on her back, new sandals on her feet and a teddy bear to hold. From there we took them to a place we had prepared away from the other children with mattresses and pillows and blankets and gave them water and a light, mild, meal consisting of lentils and injera. Some of the older children came in and gave them hugs and talked with them as they calmed down from the day. Finally we tucked them in and they fell fast asleep.

Today, Asnakish, Agine and Faris are all healthy, and emotionally seem to be doing well. We have been giving medicine to kill the parasites and have been putting ointment on Faris’s hands and feet every day and have been pulling bugs out of his hands and feet. He is beginning to show emotion now and loves to be picked up and laughs when I spin around really fast with him in my arms. The girls are making friends with all of the other girls and will be starting school soon. Praise Jesus for his faithfulness in allowing these children to get over their pasts and move on into a much brighter future.

-sam

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~ by nfrank04 on February 13, 2010.