The Reality of it All

I have been trying to write this blog for awhile and I start typing but then delete it all. How do I express myself in a way that will help people to understand, to get behind us and other ministries in Kenya and support this life here and know that it IS our call, our passion to be here?

I, Meredith, have been in Kenya for almost eight years.  I have seen and experienced more in those eight years than I did in the twenty-eight years of living in Canada.

Why?

North America has bad things happen. Children are abandoned, starving, beaten, raped and dying.  I know that.  Kenya has bad things happen. Children are abandoned, starving, beaten, raped and dying.  I know that too.

I think the difference is, and knowing that the economy and government services are struggling, is that North American government still helps their own people, in some way or another.  When bad things happen to children in North America, someone is held accountable for it. The justice system isn’t always the greatest there but when bad things happen to children, the public HATES it and fights for them.

I know in many States that if a mother can’t care for her child any longer, she can drop that baby off at a hospital or police station or a fire department, with no questions asked, no charges laid.  It’s a safe place; it’s a place where a mother knows that her child will get taken care of. 

In Kenya, there really no safe place and so many mothers are left with the choices of abandoning the baby in a maize (corn) field, the hospital, the side of the road or a dump.  They do this with the hope that their baby will be found and taken care of by a passerby or taken to a children’s home where the baby will likely be fed three meals a day, have nice clothes on his/her back and get an education. Things the mothers believe they would never be able to provide. 

There is no real assistance from the Kenyan government and if there was, it’s not going into the mothers’ pockets.

The mothers also cringe at the thought, and quickly brush it from their minds, that their child will die where she abandoned him/her.  Hypothermia, wild dogs, sepsis or starvation.  To think about it aches too much.

And then there are the mothers who don’t want to be found out that they desire to abandon their babies and so they drop them down thirty foot outhouses where the baby likely drowns in the filth that lies below.  Never to be heard from or seen again.  Only a small percentage of those children are found alive.

There are mothers who are forced to give up their children because their first husband ran away with another woman and the new husband loathes the fact that the children aren’t biologically his and so he beats them, enslaves them or tells the mother to send them away.  This also happens vice versa too.

There is a lack of education here for new mothers. They give birth at home, in the hospital, in the field and that is it.  Especially a first time or young mother needs wisdom and direction.  New or young mothers don’t know what to look for; what is right or what is wrong.

For anyone who has been following my status updates on Facebook this past week, you’ll know that I have been visiting the local district (government) hospital.  It’s a sad place. It’s dirty, cockroach filled, understaffed and overcrowded.  In the children’s ward, there are almost always two children to a bed plus their caregivers.

The caregivers usually consist of either a mother or grandmother who looks exhausted and overwhelmed. And almost all of them having that burning question in their minds, “How on earth am I going to find the money to pay for this hospital bill?” A bill that could be no more than $50 to $100 at the government hospital.

On Friday of last week, my friend Kim and I went to the hospital to visit twin boys who were brought there by a social worker who met the boys in a nearby slum area.

When we arrived, we found out that only one of the twin boys, named Kevin, was admitted into the 

hospital. Apparently he is in worse condition than his brother. 

Kevin

Kevin is five years old. He is still in size one/two diapers; he is the size of a one and half year old. He cannot walk and can only stand on his very skinny, weak legs when he is holding on to something or someone.  After a minute or two, his legs become shaky because he doesn’t have the strength or muscle in them yet.

His face has sores on them; his teeth are rotting; his belly is very distended. 

He laughs and talks and tells stories. 

He sees people walk into their ward area and demands to know who they are and who they are the mother of.  Everyone that has a bed around him laughs, being entertained by this little boy.

Kevin’s mother died awhile ago; their father and step-mother took them in. They weren’t wanted there and so the two boys paid the price. They weren’t being fed properly and were being beaten.

At one point during our visit with Kevin that day, the social work, asked Kevin if he wanted to nap. He said that he didn’t want to in fear that his dad would come and beat him. Broke our hearts.

Katherine & Valerie

On the same bed as Kevin is a sixteen/seventeen year old mother, named Katherine. She is holding on to a very sickly looking baby. We find out that the baby, named Valerie, has just turned one. She is long in length but super skinny.  She can barely muster up a cry.  She has no teeth, not one single tooth.

Katherine didn’t know that it wasn’t normal for a baby not to cry and because the baby didn’t cry, she didn’t feed her very much.  Valerie, we learned, although does suffer from malnutrition, is also suffering some sort of heart condition. Katherine and Valerie can’t be released from the hospital unless she is immediately transferred to a referral hospital in another town less than two hours from Kitale. She doesn’t have the $50 plus whatever the costs of the tests will be to check on Valerie’s heart.

So she sits in the hospital.

Yesterday when Sean and I went to bring food for Kevin and the others in their section, I saw a new baby on the bed next to Kevin’s.  She was gorgeous.

Her name is Cynthia. We were told by her grandmother that she is seven months old but the size of a three or four month old.  She sucks her middle and ring finger (just like another Cindy Lou I once knew!).  She’s fussy so I go and sit with her and stroke her cheek; she immediately quiets and just looks at me.

My heart melts.

The mother to Cynthia is in school. She is in grade eight. The grandmother feeds Cynthia milk when she can get it. She knows that she is small for her age.

Cynthia has a chest problem. She is on antibiotics and will be in the hospital for a few more days.  I just want to scoop her up and bring her home.  I want to love on her and feed her until she gets those cute little baby rolls.

These stories are only about two beds in that big ward. Two beds.

I was talking with a friend today and I said, “Sometimes we wonder if we are even making a dent of a change/difference in this place.”  She said, “I know what you mean! There is no end to it.”

And no, there is no end to it, at least not on earth.

But this is when we know that we can push through, get down again on our knees, and ask God for the wisdom, the strength, the resources, the ability, the peace, and the direction so that we can keep being His hands and feet in this place.

I want to be a voice for these children. I want to be a shoulder and an ear for these mothers and grandmothers.  I want to help lead them to a Father who supplies all their needs in a way that only He can supply.

It is overwhelming but in those moments of being overwhelmed, Kevin laughs and tells a story.  Cynthia stops crying and falls asleep.  Valerie looks more alert and healthy.  And I feel Jesus making my arms long enough and big enough to hug them and growing my heart big enough to love them the way He loves them.

Sean & Kevin