A Day Spent Holding a Child

A Day Spent Holding A Child
September 27, 2008

The same secured compound in Ganta that Equip Headquarters is based in and where I will be staying the next three months, is in the same compound as an orphanage called Hope for the Nation. This is only my third day here but the last two days I have been out in the communities visiting the clinics and having meetings with the Equip team to put together immediate, short term, and long term goals for my time here. Last night I heard kids singing to "Every move I make I make in you. You make me move Jesus....waves of mercy, waves of grace, every where I look I see your face...." and I was so excited to be able to spend some time with the children today because it was Saturday.

I saw what I have seen in all the adoption advertising commercials throughout my life but never really knew how real those pictures were until today. I walked into the yard (literally the back yard of Equip is the front yard of the Orphanage) and I met a lady whose name was Maryanne who was the director of the orphanage. I told her I was an RN and would be staying at Equip for the next three months and would be working with the clinics, but since the clinics close at 4pm every day and I can't do anything after dark because of security issues, I would love to spend my evenings with her and the children and help in any way I could!!! It was amazing talking to her and hearing some of the children’s' stories. All have lost their mothers usually in or quickly after childbirth due to complications of the pregnancy, and either the father could not take care of the child or they were from a single mother. Maryanne has about 25 orphans in the orphanage but the yard is open to all the kids in the village during the day so there are many kids running around the compound.

I walked around and many kids came running up to me and I held a few and saw 4 little babies sleeping on a mattress of the ground but then my eyes fell on a little boy in the corner who looked like he was no older than 10 months old, who was sitting on the ground eating rice with his fingers. I could see all his ribs, spine, and bony arms, and his stomach was enlarge and bloated. He just sat there, no facial expressions, no eye contact with me, but just sat there. I asked about him and found out his name was Tiedo, he was 4 years old. Maryanne said that he was in a cycle where he would gain weight but every month he would loose all the weight he had gained and when she takes him to the clinic they don't find any problems with worms, malaria, or any other diseases.

I picked him up and I have never felt anything like that in my hands before. I truly felt like I was going to crush his bones in my arms. I put him close to me and went to sit down and just held him in my arms at my chest. I just kept whispering to him that Jesus loved him so much. His mother died at childbirth and his father never comes around to visit him but his father does not want to give him over to the care of Hope for the Nation so Tiedo is just living at the orphanage because of his sever malnutrition. Maryanne said he looked much better than last week because he is standing again but when he goes through these cycles of weight loss they often wonder if he will make it. I just rocked him and sang to him. I talked to all the other kids who were there and many of them put on a "show" for me and sang me the Bible songs they knew and showed me all their dances which were so good and I just got to watch, sing, and hold Tiedo. When it was time for me to go to bed I truly didn't want to leave him. I wanted to take him up the short hill to my room and allow him to sleep with me. I placed him on the dark mat and he started sobbing. I picked him back up immediately and brought his ear to my lips and told him that I had to go to bed and that I would come and hold him tomorrow. I told him Jesus loved him and that I did too. I placed him down slowly again and he still cried a little but I was able to comfort him before I left.

As I was there I also fell in love with a 3 month old little girl who is so beautiful but whose mother is young, it is her first child, and her breasts are hurting her too much to breast feed so her 3 month old is extremely small and malnourished. I feel that the malnutrition of the child is due mainly to the lack of knowledge of nutritional information for her child. The baby was so tiny, 3 months and couldn't hold her head up, the size of her wrists and tiny fingers were almost unbelievable. Her mother told me that when I left I could take her baby with me to America. That almost crushed me. This beautiful child she just wanted to give to me!