Melissa Small

Last night, Sean and I spent the night out at In Step. It’s becoming a better routine for us now. When we arrive at the home, the children are usually outside at this point. When they see the vehicle turn into the driveway, they start to chant our names: “Mama Mary, Baba Sean!”  We LOVE it.

I want to write a bit about a girl named Melissa. She’s nicknamed Melissa Mdogo, which means small in Swahili. There is another Melissa at In Step and when this Melissa came, they decided to call her Melissa Mdogo because she was younger (and smaller) than the other one.

Anyway, Melissa and I actually have a history together. A history that started way before In Step and when she was very small.

Melissa’s mother used to be on the streets. She would be drunk and high as she carried Melissa on her back, going around trying to sell beads. She said they were for her daughter, but in reality it was for her addictions.

I would see Melissa and her mother almost every day on the street. Her mother had a raspy voice, with the drunken slur and I could hear her calling me from a block away, “Maaary, Maaary!”

Melissa’s hair, most of the time, would be the colour of copper, which usually signifies malnutrition. Her mother would always tell me that Melissa was hungry and needing food. On most occasions, I would run into the grocery store and buy a loaf of bread and a small carton of milk. I would sit on the steps of the grocery store with Melissa and her mother and watch Melissa scarf down the bread and milk.  I would hold this little girl (she was one when I first met her) and just love on her and pray over her. I would try to communicate with her mother, with my limited Swahili and her limited English, to help her get help. But she just didn’t.

I’m not going to lie; there were times where I would just hope that Melissa’s mother would just hand me Melissa and ask me to take care of her and raise her. I hated seeing this beautiful little girl going through such a rough life; I wanted her to have a better life than that on the street.

In early 2009, Melissa and her mother became seriously ill and ended up in the hospital. It was then that her mother realized that she had hit a rock bottom, thinking that she may die and knowing at this point in her life if she were to survive, she wouldn’t be able to take care of Melissa and her newborn son (whom no one really knew about at that time). She wanted to give them to a person/place that she knew would take care of them until she, herself, could get the help.

Our good friends at the Coffee Shop helped Melissa’s mom with the medical bills and assisted her in getting rehabilitation and helped her with a job.  It was in April of 2009 that Melissa’s mother, along with the Coffee Shop, asked In Step if they would take Melissa and Benson. And they did.

Shortly after arriving at In Step

The changes in Melissa these past two years has been incredible. She knows that she is safe and taken care of. She has a bed to sleep in and not a veranda at a shop or a hard, cold floor. She doesn’t have to wonder, at the age of one (and up) what she may or may not be eating today; she now has a full belly of food every day. She doesn’t have to worry about dying of malaria or typhoid or tuberculosis or pneumonia (due to cold weather conditions at night) because she knows that when she is sick, she will be taken to the doctors and given medicine to feel better. She doesn’t feel alone because she has 103 other children that she calls brothers and sisters.

Melissa has a relationship with her mother, who comes out every few weeks to visit her and Benson. Melissa enjoys spending that time with her mother as much as her mother enjoys seeing them. Every time we see her mother, she ALWAYS asks how her children are doing and asks us to greet them (a common comment here in Kenya) for her.

She loves her children and did what she thought was best for them.  I am so happy with her progress; she still has a way to go but she knows that she is making her life better for not only herself but for her children. That’s all that can be asked of her right now. She got a second chance at life.

And for Melissa; she too, got a second chance. God has BIG plans for this girl; He has always watched over her.  I’m so excited and thankful that we get to be a part of her story and her life, in a different way as in years ago.

Melissa today at In Step

Much Love,

Meredith