One of my favorite days of ministry on the race happened a couple weeks ago. Impact Baby Rescue partnered with an organization called Project Baby Box. The goal of this organization is to give new mothers a gift of encouragement and supply them with a few things their babies will need. The first couple weeks are the hardest for most mothers. Bringing home a brand new baby, to a dirty shack, clothed in a few scraps of newspaper, is -believe it or not- a lot of moms realities here.
My friend Ashley and I got the privilege of delivering these packs to the new mothers and their newborns. The rooms in the hospitals are nothing like America. It’s just a giant room filled with 20+ beds with bassinets next to each one. All the moms were sitting together, holding their babies and walking around. There was not a single family member visiting these new moms and their babies. No fathers to be seen. But the moms were SO excited to have us there.
One of the mothers that I gave a baby pack to wasn’t holding her baby so I asked if we could go
sit on her bed, because holding newborn babies is the absolute best, duh! When we got over there she gave me her baby and we talked about her family and the SIX other children she has back at home. She proceeded to tell me that the sweet little boy I was holding was three days old and she hadn’t picked out a name for him yet. I asked her what her other kids’ names were and she responded with a lot of different african names that I can’t pronounce, along with one child named Elvis. Classic. I proceeded to ask if she wanted another african name or an english name like Elvis. She exclaimed that since I was here all the way from America that I NEEDED TO name him an american name. SHE ASKED ME TO NAME HER BABY. THAT IS A LOT OF PRESSURE FOR A 19 YEAR OLD OK. She was looking at me with eyes of promise, hoping I would name her child something meaningful and strong. A powerful name. African’s are big on name meanings by the way, so this was like one of the biggest moments of my life. And would you like to guess what I named him? Go ahead, take a couple swings.
TYLER. Out of all the names in the entire world with deep meaning, the first name that came to mind was Tyler. And apparently it means layer of tile or something like that. I know, I know, way to go Kaylin. Luckily, Tyler’s mom loved the name, so my job was done.
BUT. I will say that even though I have MANY cute, meaningful names picked out for my future children, (if you don’t have a secret list you’re lying, everyone has their kids’ names picked out) I don’t think I should be allowed to pick my children’s names because apparently I’m prone to blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, not what I’ve had picked out for years.
And that is my funny story of the week for everyone. Don’t worry, my teammates all call me Tyler now, just to remind me of how awful of a human I am. I will never forget the day I named an African baby Tyler. He’ll probably be the only Tyler in his entire village, but hey that’s okay. Little baby Tyler’s going to do big things, I can feel it.
Thanks for reading about my AWFULly funny day.
Tata for now!
