After staff meeting today, Carla asked if I would accompany
her to the children’s office to pick up two kids who were found abandoned in a
forest about two hours from Kitale. I
agreed seeing as I have never been to the children’s office before and it’s
always good to have company where multiple children are concerned. On the drive to the office, Carla explained
what she knew of the kids. They were
said to be twins, a boy and a girl, around 1 ½ years of age, and someone found
them in a forest outside of a farm and took them to the children’s office in
that area. When the gentleman arrived
with the kids, the first thing I noticed was the boy was much bigger and
appeared older than the girl, and the red tint to their skin. Later I asked Carla about their skin, and she
said it is a sign of malnutrition, along with the girls reddish hair. Carla asked the boy what his name was in
Swahili, but he talked so quietly no one could understand. Shortly after that started to get worked up
and said he wanted mendazi (no idea on the spelling) which is a fried piece of
bread, kind of like a donut. We were
lucky enough to find some food another kid had left behind, and the people in
the children’s office gave to kids some chai to drink while the paperwork was
being filled out. When we had the paper
stating the known information on the kids and that they were placed into In
Step’s care, we put the girl in the car and tried to get her brother to climb
in too. He ran away from Carla—he had to
be scared; how many white people has he seen in his life? And then two of them are trying to take him
away… Carla said in Swahili that we were
going to get food, and he got a big smile and let Carla pick him up and put him
in the car.
Due to some health concerns, we stopped by Dr. Shadrach’s
clinic (where we take all of our sick kids), and asked him to examine
them. Besides being obviously malnourished,
he prescribed de-worming medicine and antibiotics to follow, and also how to
treat their feet that were riddled with jiggers (a parasitic bug). He also estimated that they boy (who was able
to tell us his name is Sammy) is about 4 years old, and the girl is about 2
years old. So we took them home and
explained what we knew about the kids and asked the aunties to bathe them. After a good scrub, Carla and I treated their
feet as the doctor recommended and fed them bananas to tide them over until
dinner. While we were working on their
feet, Ray (one of the white full-time staff) was making the boy smile and laugh
by playing with him.
My heart breaks for these kids. It’s one thing to read about abandoned
children, or even to see them at In Step where they run around happy most of
the time, but to be a part of their story is something completely
different. As I said to Carla, I just
can’t get over a parent abandoning their child after raising them for 2-4
years. Deserting a child after birth
because you know you can’t take care of them I can wrap my brain around, but
bonding with a child and neglecting them and then discarding them in a forest
is beyond my abilities to understand.
You could have taken them to child services or at least abandon them in
town, but to leave them in the woods with dangerous animals is absolutely
unacceptable! No, I don’t understand the
circumstances of the parents, but I saw those two precious kids today—the look
of fear, rejection, and hopelessness in their eyes… I don’t have words…
What gives me hope is that these kids have been rescued from
whatever situation they were in. In Step
will care for their physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. They will be fed, clothed, and loved the way
all of God’s kids should be. They will
have a future. It will take some time to
adjust to being enveloped by 119 other kids plus various staff, but I know they
will be ok. Praise God for In Step!
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