Blessed

Every once in a long while, we experience a defining moment, usually accompanied by a lesson we'll remember forever.

During our first morning in Doma, Kevin Fry, one of the founders of Eden Children's Village toured us through the property, showing us the clothing bank, farming operation, herbal garden, health clinic, school, and orphan cottages.  It was during my tour that day I had such a moment.

ECV uses Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) curriculum in its school system, which allows each child to work at his or her own pace.  This differs greatly from the American standardized public education system.  In fact, it has proven to yield significantly better results in cases involving special needs children.  I wondered how and why.  Kevin explained that every child comes to Eden with unique issues and academic challenges.  Most or all of their orphans are behind in at least some core subjects.  It was when he described the circumstances that led to those discrepancies that I was almost forced to sit down.

Kevin told us about one of the ECV orphans who was found as a newborn in the bottom of a pit toilet (what we would call a port-a-potty).  Her umbilical cord was still attached and he estimates the baby had been in there for several hours.  The fact that she was still alive was a miracle. 

Another child, Jimmy, was born in the hospital where his mother was a long-term psychiatric patient.  He roamed the halls of that hospital until he was two years old, at which point he was moved to Eden Children’s Village; he was born HIV positive and his body is now rejecting the anti-viral drugs that should be sustaining his immune system. 

A third child, Blessed (pronounced “Bless-ed”) was found as a newborn in a sewer ditch in Harare when a security guard noticed a trash bag moving.  He ripped the bag open to find her laying there, just hours old with her umbilical cord still attached.

Two nights ago, I had dinner in one of the orphan cottages.  After a hearty meal of sadsa (thick corn meal), rape (their equivalent of our spinach greens), and 1 inch-long fishes that look at you while you eat them, we sat down and sang with the kids.  Their passion and joy were contagious.  Pauline, the child Kaila and I sponsor led a devotion based in Matthew 10:31-32:

"But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.  Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”

She stressed that each person in the room was created by God for a special purpose, and that our numbered days were not to be wasted.  Perhaps the remarkable wisdom of this 17 year old woman stems partly from the fact that she memorized the entire book of Proverbs word for word.

While she was talking, I spotted a beautiful, soft-spoken, elementary-aged girl.  She had a captivating innocence about her.  After the study was over, I asked Pauline for her name. 

“Oh, that’s Blessed,” she replied.  For a second, I was speechless.  Six years ago, some series of circumstances resulted in this beautiful, vulnerable child being left for dead in a closed trash bag in a sewage ditch.  With her permission, I took this picture with her. 

If God knew every hair on the head of young Blessed, how would he allow this to happen?  In the midst of these thoughts, I was reminded of a sermon I heard from Samson Latchison nearly ten years ago.  He was speaking to a group of high school students about the controversial subject of abortion.  At the climax of his talk, he simply stated, “Every baby that the earth drops, heaven catches.”  This isn’t specifically stated anywhere in Scripture, but Romans 6:23 reads:

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

As a newborn in that sewer ditch, Blessed had never even been given a chance to sin and therefore repent and follow Jesus, so if she had passed, I believe God would have been merciful.  It would have been likely that she would have died in that ditch.  She was so vulnerable. 

But she didn’t.  She moved.  And that security guard saw that movement from a across a busy street in Zimbabwe’s capital city of three million people and found her there and brought her to safety. 

At the end of our tour of the schools, Kevin Fry emphasized that every ECV child is taught that he or she was created for an important purpose in God’s Kingdom and his or her existence is proof of such a commission.  These children were chosen by God to be raised by His people.  It will be interesting to see that purpose unfold in the life of a little girl named Blessed as we return to this orphanage in the future.