Do you believe in miracles?

I will never forget July 14, 2017 when a tiny boy was put into my arms. He was a few days shy of his second birthday and weighed only 14 pounds. He couldn’t hold his own head up, he couldn’t crawl nor stand. He hardly had the energy to lift a hand to take some food. His body was skin and bones and he was very very sick with tuberculosis and extreme malnutrition.  His mother was 14-years old when she gave birth and she dumped the him with her Grandmother, just as her mother dumped her when she was born.  The newborn lived with his Great Grandmother for many months, being locked outside her stick and mud hut during the day then locked inside the hut when the Great Grandmother would go away, being completely neglected and starved.

 

We named the boy Jonathan and prayed over him daily, but Jonathan quickly ended up in the hospital for emergency care. Weeks later he came back to the El Roi baby home where we started the long journey to health, and one that none of us were sure would be successful.

 

This past Wednesday Jonathan finished pre-kindergarten and is moving on to Kindergarten in January. As we sat at the awards ceremony Jonathan was called up to the front and given the “Star Athlete” award.  Star athlete???  I believe in miracles because I have experienced them.

Then there is our Grace. A child who was left on the side of the road by her mother, and when found was taken immediately to the hospital where she was in a coma for many days. She was treated for meningitis, but was left blind. We did not know that when she was placed with us, and it was only during development assessments that we realized the depth and breadth of her disabilities. Eventually our medical team broke the news to us that Grace would never be able to sit on her own, or crawl or walk. We already knew from U.S. Ophthalmologist that she was blind and would never see.  

 

 

Well, Grace can see, she can sit and crawl and walk and dance and talk and sing. She is one of our extra special children who has extra special needs, and we are thankful to have her in our family. I believe in miracles because I have seen them. Enjoy Grace singing and dancing in the video below.

Then there are two other extra special girls who I want to update you on today. Both were burned as newborn children, both are strong and vibrant members of our family and both are testaments to the power of prayer, love, financial support and medical care from our friends in the U.S. and Canada.

 

Shirley has been to the U.S. twice for reconstructive surgery and we don’t anticipate her needing any more. She graduated from Kindergarten this week and was so proud to receive her certificate.  

 

Phiwa has also been to the U.S. twice for reconstructive surgery, and still has a long way to go in her healing process.  She came to us as a “boarding school” student two years ago and couldn’t speak any English and she couldn’t read or write as she was not able to attend school because of her facial burns (the other children were abusive to her). This week she not only passed 1^st grade, but she got STRAIGHT A’s and is on tot 2^nd grade in January. This is a testament to her hard work, great tutors, an educational psychologist and special education techniques from private school teachers in the U.S. who helped her catch up and WANT to learn. Phiwa is part of a very large global village of people who love and care for her and she in return is a blessing to all of us.

 

I believe in miracles because I have witnessed them.

 

 

None of these children would have been able to receive the care that they desperately needed if it weren’t for the generosity of people who have given sacrificially to help save the life or change the life of a Swazi child.

 

Would you join us in providing the ongoing care for the 275 children who currently call Project Canaan “home” and help us be able to continue to say “yes” to other children in need? We have a matching gift of up to $175,000 for our year end giving campaign so for every dollar you donate before December 31^st, it will be doubled! This might be the best Christmas gift you ever gift – the gift of life and love.

 

To make a year-end gift in the U.S. please click here.

 

To make a year-end gift in Canada please click here.

 

I hope that you experience miracles in your own life and find inexplicable joy during this sacred season of hope.

 

Live from Eswatini  … enjoying having Spencer home.

 

Janine

 

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” – Edmund Burke

I had an “ah ha” moment this week while I was preparing to speak to 300 students at Changhua Senior High School in Taiwan.

I was talking about the topic of hope.  Then I talked about hopelessness.  Then I talked about evil.  And as I prepared for my presentation a link between the three became very clear to me.

I used three examples of hopelessness; Baby Shirley, Baby River and Little Phephile.

Baby Shirley’s mother was hopeless, so much so that she felt the only option she had was to dump her newborn baby in a pit latrine and then dump fire on top of her and left her to die.

Shirley "before".

Shirley "after".

Baby River’s mother was so hopeless that after she gave birth to him she put him in a plastic bag and then dumped him in the river, and left him to be eaten by river crabs.

River "before".

River "after".

Little Phephile’s mother was so hopeless that she was powerless to stop a year of abuse by family members that resulted in Phephile’s arm to be broken in five places and her leg broken in two places.

Phephile "before".

Phephile "after".

I find that people who hear these stories are quick to judge these mothers and call them “evil”.  They are also quick to sentence them for their crimes and demand the harshest of punishment.  But I don’t see it that way. I have looked directly in to the eyes of Shirley’s mother and Phephile’s mother and what I saw was hopelessness.  They were empty, dead inside, with no options, and no hope.

I showed my Taiwanese students before and after photos of these three children. The before photos represented hopelessness, and the after photos represented hope.  And then showed them a quote by Edmund Burke that I find very powerful.  It says: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Could it be that hopelessness turns in to evil when good men and women do nothing?

Could it be that River, Shirley and Phephile would not have had to suffer if their mothers could have found people who cared and acted to help them before their hopeless turned to an act of evil?

Oh how I wish we could have helped these young women when they were in need rather than having to try to put the pieces back together after their babies were injured.

After my speech was finished a young man came up to me and was visibly moved. He said that he has always wanted to stand up against injustice and make a difference in the world, but he has always been told that he wasn’t good enough and would never make a difference. I told him that he had been told lies, that he was powerful beyond measure.  Later in the day he sent me a message that read, “Today, after listening to your speech, l felt something turned to be different in my heart.”

Working and living in Africa has taught me that hope is life-saving, and life-giving.  And hopelessness is life-taking and life-threatening. 

On my darkest days when I am discouraged or wanting to give up it is inevitable that I get an message from someone from around the world writing to encourage me and remind me to keep my eyes on our only true hope … Jesus. Those words are always timely and are exactly what I needed to hear.

I pray that each of us will reach out to others with words of true HOPE when we feel prompted to do so.  You may just save a life.

Live from Taiwan … I am hopeful.

Janine

What a week: 37 children moved, turned away a baby, and a memorial service

This has been a week! 

It started with the race to get the Emseni building finished so that 20 of our biggest children could move up to their permanent home. The reason it was so critical was because we were full to overflowing in all our children’s housing. Kuthula Place, that should house 10 babies (age 1 day to 4-months), had 14 babies in it.  The El Roi Baby home, which now has 32 beds, had 34 children living there.  The Labakhetsiwe toddler home, which was built for 40 children, had 44 children living there.  We were bursting at the seams, but on Wednesday, April 29^th the dominos started to fall.

First, the 10 big ones moved their bags up to Emseni. Then 10 toddlers from El Roi moved to the toddler home. Then 7 babies who are 6+ months old moved from Kuthula Place to El Roi.  With the help of awesome volunteers, incredible Children’s Campus staff, and anyone else who was around to help, all the moves went off without a hitch.

Paul, Emmanuel and Ishmael were all packed and ready to move!

Hope loves her new bed!

In the midst of the planning for all of the above I was asked to go and help assess an 8-month old baby who was reported to be disabled and needing help.  We do not knowingly accept disabled children as we do not have the staff or training to help, but as it turns out, 10% of our children have some kind of long-term disability

We were told that the mother of the baby was dead, the child was living with an old Grandfather (who is the one who reported the case to Social Welfare) and the child was starving to death.  I wondered if maybe the child was just developmentally delayed or stunted due to malnutrition, so I asked Brooke and Shongwe to come with me to the homestead, with the Social Welfare officer, to assess the situation. 

After driving for an hour, over hill and dale, then through the bush, we came to a home that had many, many small children running around half naked.  As soon as we arrived we saw the child in question, but the story wasn’t at all what had been reported to the government office. The mother of the baby was alive and sitting in front of us. The Grandmother of the baby was there as well as several other women, who were mothers or Aunties for the dozens children who were sitting on the ground watching us.  The baby was not starving to death, as was reported, and in fact, she wasn’t 8-months old, she was 8 YEARS old. The only part of the story that was true was that she was severely disabled, and we found her sliding around dirt yard on her bare bum.  She is no doubt a severely “at risk” little girl, but in no way qualified to come to live at our baby home. 

We thanked the family for inviting us for the visit and left them with some food for the children.  We must all pray for the safety and protection of that little girl.

I don’t often tell those stories in this blog, but that type of “wild goose chase” happens fairly often, but it’s always worth the drive when a child’s life can be saved.  I am thankful for those who give money to my compassion purse which allows me to buy fuel and food for those trips.

We ended the week with a memorial service for our dear friend Shirley Ward.  It was a beautiful day as we gathered with Shirley’s family, friends, government officials, Doctors and Social Workers to celebrate a life will lived.  Shirley was the one who actually set up the Heart for Africa charity in Swaziland in 2004.  She was also the one who found the Project Canaan land in 2009 and navigated government relations so that the El Roi Baby home could be opened in 2012. 

In honor of Shirley Ward.

There are no words to describe the sadness we feel to say good-bye to Shirley, but her faith was strong enough to move mountains, and we saw her do that many times in the ten years we worked with her.

The El Roi choir sang.

Shirley with Cindy Van Wyk at the dedication of the Project Canaan land June 21, 2009

Many mountains were moved this week and we give thanks for the dozens of people who made the whole week a success.  Thank you Jesus for your provision, your love and your attention to detail.

Live from Swaziland… we are going to take the weekend off.

Janine 

A fun aerial photo of The Oasis reception with Emseni East to the right.

Do we have to say "no" to more babies?

Late Thursday afternoon when Ian and I had just arrived back from Johannesburg (Ian had flown in from a trip to the US) I got a call from a Social Welfare Officer in Mbabane.  She said she had a baby who needed our help and asked if could I drive there right away? Thankfully Kenny and Amber were already in Mbabane and Shongwe was in Manzini so the three of them were able to go and pick up baby #77, who we are calling Moses.

We are told that Moses’ mother died in childbirth (as did his twin) and right after the funeral the father ran away and hasn’t been seen. Moses was left in the hands of his 16-year old sister, who dropped out of school to care for him.  There were three other younger siblings as well and the children were suffering terribly. In fact, Moses was a year old (born on September 15, 2013) and had never tasted milk or formula – he was living on maize flour since birth. 

When Moses arrived at El Roi he was given a bath, which is the first thing that is done to get the child clean and give him a quick “look over”.  Imagine our surprise to find that this child has 14 fingers and 16 toes!  None of us had ever seen anything like that before, but alas, we love him just the same and will get council on if and how surgery might be needed.

The next day Ian and I were in town picking up the Egg Farmers of Canada, who flew in to discuss a new partnership with them to help us provide healthy egg protein to the 3,500 Orphans and Vulnerable Children that we feed each through our church partners each week.  During lunch I got a call from a new Social Welfare Officer (in a region we have not worked in before) and she begged me for help.

An hour later I found myself in the Commandant’s office at the Women’s Prison in Swaziland with the four men from the Egg Farmers of Canada.  We heard a story that required true grit to not break down sobbing in the office.

A 21-year old girl sat in front of us holding two babies.  The girl was in prison for the attempted murder of her 6-week old baby girl.  At 11PM on September 11^th, 2014 she  gave birth in an outdoor pit latrine/toilet to the baby and went back to bed. At 5AM she went back to see if the baby was dead and heard that the baby was still alive so she went and got a bucket of fire and threw it in on the baby to make sure the baby died.  Her Uncle heard the cries of the newborn and ran to the rescue. When he looked deep down in to the pile of stinking human waste he saw the newborn baby on fire. He quickly grabbed a shovel and threw dirt in on top of the baby to douse the fire. 

Both mother and baby went to the local hospital for five weeks and the child is left with significant scarring on her face, arms and legs. 

The second child is 16-months old and had a seizure at the age of 6-months leaving her with some paralysis on the left side. But ironically, she ended up in the hospital with her burned sister and received some Physiotherapy and now has much more use of her arm and leg.  The child is severely malnourished and the orange color of her hair is only one indicator of that malnutrition. Both babies came home with us on Friday, wrapped up in the loving arms of our Canadian friends (Peter, Tim, Roger and Scott).  The mother will stay in prison awaiting her trial.  We are calling the small baby Shirley, and the older one Rebecca.

Peter, Tim, Roger and Scott from the Egg Farmers of Canada.

All week we had been in conversations about another baby boy whose mother had been sent to Juvenile Remand by her father, and then found out she was pregnant.  The child was born inside the Juvenile Prison and then handed out the front door to the Grandfather. He did not want, or couldn't care for a newborn so gave the baby to the alleged father from Mozambique.  The father had no means to care for the baby (baby is being treated for HIV because the mother is HIV positive) and we were asked to take the one-month old baby before he was dumped.   We were unable to get to that baby on Friday, so I promised to go back to Manzini on Saturday morning and pick up the baby and the paperwork.

Saturday morning I woke up completely overwhelmed.  Ian and I sat drinking our coffee and realized that today we would receive Baby #80 and that we were MORE THAN FULL at the baby home.  There is still room at the toddler home, but the baby home would have 45 babies in it (built for 20, but then double stacked cribs allowed for 40).  We talked about having to say “no” to the next baby.  Not to mention we do not have the monthly funding for the last 7 babies who have come to us. 

I wasn’t sure how I would be able to say “no”, knowing that we might be the only hope that the next baby would have for survival.  I left the house very disturbed and unsettled.

At 8AM I left to pick up Tim and Peter to head to town to get Baby #80.  We NEVER get babies on the weekend because the government offices are closed, so this was a first and an exception to the rule.  As I drove off the farm I received a phone call from the head of the Child Protection Department of the Police.  He said the police had a 1-month old baby boy and the mother of the baby was insane. She was trying to harm the baby and would often leave the baby alone for days.  Could I please go and meet the police and take the baby while they take the mother to the National Psychiatric Hospital?  It as as if God was laughing at me and saying, "I am the only One who gets to say "no".

I said “yes”.

First we went and picked up the baby we were initially asked to get, whom we are calling Souza, born September 11, 2014. After doing what needed to be done we drove to meet the police at the Psychiatric Hospital.

I can’t even begin to describe what the inside of that hospital with 300 patients is like. Lots of screaming, crying, singing, howling and even barking. There was one women who saw Tim and I and starting singing, clapping and calling, “Mommy!  Daddy!”  Then she proceeded to take off all her clothes and dance for us inside her secured room.  (A blog for another day).

Baby Quinton (named Queentin by his mother). Born September 16, 2014.

The Police will follow up with the Social Welfare Department, but as of today we are responsible for 81 little lives.  I have no idea how we will pay for them each month, but I believe that the Lord will provide.  I have no idea how we will get medical care for Baby Moses’ hands and feet or for the surgery for Baby Shirley so that she can properly breathe through her burned nose and see correctly out of her left eye, but Jesus knows. And today, overwhelmed and frankly, tired, I leave it at the cross.

We have 38 children in the Toddler home (Daniel and Eve moved up today).  There are 28 living in the baby home and we have moved all 15 “tiny” babies (under 6-months) up to Kuthula Place.    It’s a full and busy place, and we give thanks.

Live from Swaziland … I had to nap before writing this.

Janine

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