They are born into a harsh world. They lay in dark huts with the flies buzzing around their faces. Days, weeks, months pass while the severe neglect keeps manifesting itself more and more in their emaciated forms. They cry desperate, hungry cries and no one hears. Their cries get weaker, their little bones jut out of translucent skin, and infection spreads into lung tissue. Their eyes, with an almost aged look of suffering in them, look up for hope. Struggling for breath, they fight for life.
We bent over the exam table today, working with tiny Mishla. A righteous indignation swept over us as we looked up to see his Mother staring placidly into space. Mishla turned one year old in May and weighs less then 4 kg. His little mouth jutted out from his face, hardly closing as the skin was stretched so tight. His bones stuck out sharply and we could count every rib. He was too weak to cry, or cough up the terrible flem in his lungs. He reached up with a tiny hand to hold his head as we cleaned the diarrhea off his body.
And it was just yesterday that I looked up from checking a blood pressure and saw a tiny face gasping for breath. Whit and I quickly stripped off her wet clothes and stared at a tiny little chest retracting fast and furious. She was suffocating. I hooked up O2 and held my stethoscope to her heaving chest. Fluid. Pneumonia. She was 6 months old and weighed a little over 7 lbs.
Her Mother seemed distant, and laughed in her baby's desperate face. We started questioning her, and found out this baby was a twin. Her twin brother was at home, fat and healthy. It all started making sense, as often parents neglect one twin and favor the other. After we nurses, the clinic staff and Shana all had long talks with her mother, she consented to go to town for further treatment. Please pray that the love of Jesus would hold tiny Jeanette and soften her Mother's heart. Both babies are at the Malnutrition center in town where they get 24 hour care and are seen by a full medical team.
I couldn't help but think of a few lines of my favorite song today...
Someday a bright new way will break upon that shore,
And there will be no sickness, no more sorrow, no more war...
And little children never will go hungry anymore,
And there will be a bright new morning over there,
They'll be a bright new world for us to share.
Till then may Jesus break our hearts for what breaks His.
May we, as His followers never forget the forgotten.
- Mis Kate
