This past week has probably been one of the hardest since leaving 8 months ago. I was faced with a situation I had never before handled….child abuse. Pastor Gift, the lead pastor in Nsoko and one of the most amazing men I have ever met, called me over to one of the children and began to show me bruises and scars on her body. Eliza is a beautiful 8 year-old girl that lives with her mother and step father. She comes to the care point every day after school with her sister to eat.
The following week we took Eliza and another little boy named Kiwi who Lisa, one of my teammates, had seen come with cigarette burns and different cuts and bruises on his face day after day. We first picked up Eliza from school and then traveled to a different care point where Kiwi was. Pastor Gift told Kiwi that he needed to come with us for a while. He disappeared for about twenty minutes and when he returned he was in his Sunday best. He was wearing the nicest outfit that he owned, an old pair of cordoroye pants and a faded blue polo shirt, along with his new shoes that he had just received at our shoe distribution last month.
My heart just broke at that point. Here he was excited to go on an “outing” with the pastor and not having a clue that he was actually being taken to the police station to later be questioned and examined by government doctors. (Eliza & her sister)
When we arrived at the police station, the government officials and policemen were all extremely helpful. They told us that the two children would need to be taken to the local hospital for their scars and bruises to be examined by a government doctor so that they could begin to make a case for child abuse. Eliza stayed close to me and held my hand throughout the entire process. She was timid and seemed confused with everything that was going on.
