“Violent or graphic content”??

  

On Thursday Nokuphiwa turned 9-years-old. On Friday she received the first of many surgeries to repair and reconstruct the damage done to her face when she was burned as a 5-day-old baby in her stick and mud home in rural eSwatini. 

She and her guardian (Nokwanda) have been in Boston for the past month as the original surgery was delayed.  No one really knew what the surgeons would do first. She has a large piece of skull missing, leaving her brain and a major artery protected only by skin.  We thought they would do that first, but that is not possible until her lips are released and rebuilt.  One step at a time.  Yesterday they took the first step and released the skin on her lower lip and giving her a new lip from skin on her leg.  She will be in recovery for four weeks and then they will do the same procedure on her top lip.

The world was praying for this little girl yesterday and well wishes came in from many countries.  I have shared in past blogs that Nokuphiwa is the happiest child I have ever met. She rarely has a bad day, and her joy is infectious to all who are around her.  She was not afraid of the surgery and even entertained everyone in the waiting room with Swazi dancing while she waited her turn.

 

While she has no lips to smile with, it is clear to everyone who sees her smile, that she is smiling!   At first I was shocked when I saw her, but very quickly I got to see the person behind the burn and no longer saw her scars. Yesterday our US friends posted an update on social media saying that she was out of surgery and all went well, and when I looked at the post I saw that Facebook had blocked the photo, with a message that said “This photo may show violent or graphic content.”

Below is the photo that was posted. A happy little girl who just came out of surgery and wanted to tell everyone that she was doing okay.  A thankful little girl whose life has been changed by the generosity of others. A little girl who enjoyed her Princess birthday party, her Elsa (from Frozen) birthday cake and the bucket of water that was thrown on her (a Swazi birthday tradition).  And an algorithm decided that her photo was violent or graphic. 

I will ponder this more today, but for now I am just thankful.  I am thankful for the Shriners Hospital in Boston who is doing all this surgery for free.  I am thankful for the Global Medical Relief Fund who is overseeing Nokuphiwa’s care and funding the flights to and from eSwatini to the US.  I am thankful for our dear friends, the Habelow family, who are hosting Nokuphiwa and Nokwanda IN THEIR OWN HOME for two months and treating them like their very own family. And I am especially thankful for Nokwanda, a young Swazi woman who just graduated from University who said “yes” to being Nokuphiwa’s guardian, teacher, mother and friend.  Your kindness and selflessness will be rewarded.

These surgeries are not only life-saving, they are also life-giving. They will not only help this child so that she can go back to school without being spat at or attacked, they will also allow her to see better, hear better, eat easier and not run the risk of death if she bumps her head in the wrong spot. 

In other news, back on Project Canaan, we had our first harvest of bananas delivered to the kitchen yesterday – 1,230 of them!  Ian was THRILLED and this week the kids will get banana muffins!  Thank you Lord for your provision.

We still need 161 avocado trees to reach our goal of planting 500 trees that will provide fresh avocados all year long for our children. Will you help us today by buying an avocado keychain from Khutsala Artisans?  Or by making a donation to Heart for Africa in the US or Heart for Africa in Canada with a comment “avocado trees”.  Thank you.

Live from eSwatini … I am thankful to be a part of this journey.

Janine

PS - we asked Facebook to review their decision to hide the photo and they have done so now.

Nokuphiwa (No-koo-pee-wah)

Nokuphiwa and her BFF Mona Lisa - sweetest photo of all time?

I have never met someone like Nokuphiwa. She is the little burned girl I have mentioned in a few blogs in the past couple of months and I would like to officially introduce you to her today.  She was burned in a house fire when she was only 5-days-old and has suffered with no treatment until today, and she is now 8-years-old. (If you want to read more about Nokuphiwa’s burn story go to https://janinemaxwell.blogspot.com/2018/12/update-on-burned-girl.html)

Nokuphiwa left for Boston this past week where she will receive reconstructive surgery at Shriners Hospital in Boston, in partnership with our friends at the Global Medical Relief Fund.  She was accompanied by Nokwanda (from hospitality department at Project Canaan) and Barry Hickman (our friend and husband of Canadian HFA Board member, Carol Hickman) who flew all the way to eSwatini from British Columbia, Canada to escort the two gals to the US as neither had been on an airplane before.

When I first heard about Nokuphiwa I knew that we had to do something to help, but was very uncertain about how to do it without disrupting (or frankly, scaring) our own children who have already been through so much.  Together with our amazing staff, we worked on a plan (read past blog above) and brought her to live with us back in early December.

Within a single day she was the pied piper of Project Canaan with almost all the children loving her immediately (some of the older boys took a bit longer to see past the scars to her heart), and soon loved by all.  Allen, one of our Sr. Supervisors said, “She is like a Princess who finally found her people”.  And what a true statement that is.

Nokuphiwa is pure joy.  She cares for the underdog and scolds a bully.  She dances and sings like no one is watching, but everyone is!  Honestly, it is as if she doesn’t know she was burned. She is perfect, and beautiful and confident and made in His image, and she knows it. She is not ashamed of how she looks and is quick to take off her hat for photos so you can see her full smile (with no lips). 

Nokuphiwa is missing a piece of her skull that should be protecting a main artery in her head. You can see her heart beat through the skin on her skull. The Doctors in Boston have also identified a “leak” up above her where her eyebrow should be. While Nokuphiwa RARELY cries, when she does, that spot “leaks”. They did a CT scan on Friday to assess her skull issues, and also they are looking to see if the leak is from a mis-directed tear duct?  The whole in her skull and the leak are the two priorities for now. Then further plans will be made.

I have been very careful to not post photos of her face for her privacy sake, but I am going to do so today so that you, the reader, can see where she is starting her surgical journey and you will be able to follow along and pray with us for her. am also posting a video that was sent to me yesterday from Nokwanda. It brought me to tears (again).  But I only cry tears of joy for this little girl because SHE IS JOY.

The first thing I want to show you is Nokuphiwa singing a song yesterday.  Nokwanda sent it to me last night and it’s Nokuphiwa (who didn’t want to learn English, but seems to be learning it) singing “God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, He’s so good to me”.  I am posting this so that you can see her joy, her authenticity and her personality. I don’t think I would be singing “God is so good” as an 8-year-old if I had been living with a burned head for all of my life. Would you?

  

Now … you HAVE to read this next part!

The girls are being hosted by our friends Eileen, Joe and Eric Habelow.  When I asked the Habelow’s for the “BIG FAVOR” of hosting two strangers for 3-months while one of the strangers (and a child) underwent life-changing/life-threatening surgery, they prayed about it, talked to their Pastor to get support from their church and then said yes.  THREE weeks before the girls were to arrive at their house, their pipes burst while they were out of town at the Superbowl and it “rained” in their house for days before they got back (to Boston in the dead of winter). They got home to 3.5 feet of water on the top floor and bottom floor of their house and the house looked like a rainforest with water pouring out of ceiling lights, walls and ceilings.  EVERYTHING that they owned was destroyed by water, EXCEPT for all their photos albums and sentimental items. The only wall in the house that was not wet was the one that housed the electrical box, which saved them all from electrocution when they walked through the house testing lights switches. 

In the past three weeks they found a new home to rent, bought furniture, set up house and met Nokuphiwa, Nokwanda and Barry at the airport with more joy and love that can be imagined.  Tear are pouring down my face as I type that. We have done video calls from their house and their car and I just can’t stop crying tears of joy over all that I am seeing happen.  And she hasn’t even started surgery yet! 

Serving God is not easy, but the blessings that come with it are “exceedingly and abundantly more than we can ask for or imagine”.  Just ask Eileen and Joe! 

Special send off service last Sunday at church

Praying for the girls before they left

She insisted that I take a photo of her with the RCMP moose that Uncle Barry got her

FAREWELL!!  See you in May!

I LOVE the way she laughs so hard

Their first time seeing snow!

What are you being asked to do today? Who are you supposed to help? Who are you supposed to be a blessing to?  Please don’t hesitate – just do it.

Thank you Barry Hickman for coming and being the escort for both Nokuphiwa and Nokwanda. Thank you Nokwanda for stepping up to be the guardian for this 8-year-old girl from “deep Swaziland” for the next 3- months of grueling surgery.  Thank you Eileen, Joe and Eric for hosting the girls for the next 3-months, for taking them to Doctors appointments, CT scans and Chinese food. 

Live from eSwatini … I LOVE my life.

Janine

Update on the burned girl

On September 8^th I wrote about a baby who was horrifically burned when she was only 5-days-old and had not received treatment in the following EIGHT YEARS. You can read about her story here:  https://janinemaxwell.blogspot.com/2018/09/5-day-old-baby-girl-burned-in-house-fire.html

I also later reported that our friends at GMRF have agreed to take on her case and assist with reconstructive surgeries to rebuild her face, nose, ear and also the chunk of skull that is missing (you can see her heart beat through the skin on her head).

After much prayer and hours of discussion, our team decided that we should bring the girl to Project Canaan to acclimate her to “western living” before she goes to Boston to live with the Habelow family for 3-months during the first rounds of surgery.  She would need to learn to use a toilet that flushes (not an outhouse or toileting in the forest), to sleep in a bed (rather than a mat on the mud floor with her Grandmother and Great Grandmother, brother and sister), turn lights on and off (their home has no electricity) and live with other people who are not her own family.  We also wanted to get some weight on her so that she is prepared for extensive surgeries in the months ahead.  Her Grandmother told us that she is always complaining that she is hungry, but there was very little food at the homestead. She also doesn’t speak any English so we wanted to work on that as well.

But how do we do bring this disfigured child to our home when we have so many young children. 

So we made a plan.  We started telling the children about a girl who was badly burned and we started praying for her every night with the kids.  A week after that, we showed them photos of her disfigured face, put the photo up in the living room of the bigger kids and prayed again.  Several of the children were terrified, but most looked quizzically at what they were told was a child.  I was told during the week that several of the children asked why Nokuphiwa (No-koo-pee-wah) couldn’t come and live with them?

Some of the kids asked if she was in pain, and I explained that she had some pain (in fact she still has an open wound on her face that oozes all the time – EIGHT years of oozing), but mostly she was lonely because she had no friends. She only went to 1^st grade and then the children were too mean to her so she didn’t go to school after that.

Last Sunday I told everyone at church that Nokuphiwa would be coming to stay with us for a few weeks. The girls squealed with delight.  The staff looked uncertain.

On Monday, I drove for three hours with a Supervisor and social workers to pick up Nokuphiwa.  The roads were very (VERY) bad and it made the journey slow and treacherous.  She has always lived with her Grandmother. Her father is in prison for murder and her mother works in another part of the country.  There is no way to actually get to the house where Nokuphiwa lives by car during the rainy season, and so she and her Grandmother left the stick and mud house at 5:30AM and walked for two hours to meet us on the side of the road.  We found them in the shade under a tree, trying to stay cool on a day that was 104F/40C. 

The Grandmother shook Nokuphiwa's hand to say goodbye, there were no hugs, no tears, just goodbye and off we went on another three-hour drive home.  When we got to Emseni 3 where the big girls live, we had six girls come in at a time to meet her. We also had chocolate for Nokuphiwa to give each child as a “hello” gift.  The girls were wonderful, all except for a few who completely freaked out and screamed and ran out of the room.  By nightfall, everyone was okay with their new friend.  Interestingly, the older boys did not fare so well, and didn’t want to go anywhere near her. One boy actually threw up when he saw her. When the Supervisor asked Nokuphiwa if that made her sad, she said, "No, it's okay, I have lots of new girl friends now."  She was so happy!

As mentioned, it was a very hot day so we put the sprinklers on and gave her a bathing suit.  Within minutes the girls were all running in and out of the sprinkler with Nokuphiwa as the leader of the pack. 

This little girl has a long road ahead, and I don’t know where that road will lead, but I do know that God has a very special plan for her life and I am humbled that He has entrusted us to be a small part of her story.  Nokuphiwa will go to the US in early 2019 with a guardian from Project Canaan.  I will keep you updated as the story continues.

Would you consider making a year end gift to help us continue this work in 2019?

US Year end:  http://bit.ly/2018YearEndGivingUS

Canada year end:  https://www.heartforafrica.ca/2018-year-end-giving/

Merry Christmas everyone.

Live from eSwatini … praying for our 2-year-old Morris who was admitted in the hospital last night.

Janine