“Marisa, do you have a first aid kit? The street kid in the purple shirt cut his
hand pretty bad.” I didn’t have one but
I was on it like brown on rice. Frantically searching, I finally found one, along with Jessica my
teammate who is an Army nurse.
Jess and I made our way outside to where my other teammate
John was holding the kid. His cut was
deep, filled with dirt, grass and infection. This kid had a serious
injury. We had no idea how long it had
been since he hurt himself or how he did it, but it was clear that he needed
stitches. John and I did our best to
clean the wound while Jess went to the market to buy her supplies.
A half hour later, we were ready to give him medical care
that would have cost him thousands of dollars if he were in the states. Our patient’s name was Allen, our
purple-shirted, glue-sniffing-street kid friend. Three years prior he fled his home due to his
abusive mother. He wore all he owned and
his prize possession was the empty whisky bottle filled with shoe glue that
hung from his lip. As long as that gooey
orange substance was in the bottom of his bottle, he didn’t have to think about
how his mom abused him, or that he had to sleep on the cold ground next to
burning tires that served as his blanket.
Meshack, one of the Africans who has been helping us out
this month, came to the rescue and translated all of our love and instructions
to him. So there we sat on someone’s
porch with a high and hysterical child. Meshack wrapped himself around him, John was holding his good hand, Jess
his bad and I was in front of him doing the mama thing.
After two and a half hours we got absolutely nowhere. Chocolate, popcorn and all of the other
bribes that we could think of couldn’t convince this child that the 20 gauge
needle wouldn’t hurt him. All we could
do was wash it out, pray with faith and bandage him up.
I thought about him all night. I had given him strict instructions
to keep
his hand clean, but really, could a twelve year old care for
himself? The next day we went back to the church and
it wasn’t long before Allen found me. Jess and I, expecting the worse
were amazed at the minimal infection. Again I went into mama- mode and
before I
knew it he became my son.
The minimal infection was great news but somehow we had to
keep it that way. I decided that it
would be best to de-germ him as much as possible. It was a simple thought that changed the
entire direction of Allen’s life. The
things that conspired after this moment are still miraculous to me.
The
following blogs will trace Allen’s journey from street child to a son with a
home. It’s not a perfect picture but it
is the truth of a child’s only hope at a home. I have pushed myself to record lots of videos and pictures so that you
can walk through this fragile transition with us. It is very hard for me to stop and think
about these blogs because of all the decisions and emotions that are
intertwined in this process. However, I
have been encouraged (with force) that I must tell the story. As you read the series of blogs, please
remember to pray for us.
