Love costs.

Love will cause you to be uncomfortable but is always worth what it costs. This truth has become a reoccurring theme throughout my life. This past week, I encountered the uncomfortable part again as I walked away from a couple of heartbreaking home-visits where I met with two of our HIV+ children who were deteriorating quickly from severe malnutrition. I knew something needed to be done, and love would require action. Attempts to provide food and support to the families had been implemented, but the children were failing to grow. Both children were in need of intensive care. As Mother Teresa said, “It is very important for us to realize that love, to be true, has to hurt. I must be willing to give whatever it takes not to harm other people and, in fact, to do good to them. This requires that I be willing to give until it hurts. Otherwise there is no true love in me and I bring injustice, not peace, to those around me”.
The first little boy is named Felix; and although he is one year old, he is the size of a newborn. He weighs a mere 10 lbs. and is unable to lift up his head or sit up. He has big brown eyes that are constantly looking around the room. In November, Felix’s father passed away from complications related to HIV/AIDS leaving his mother as a widow at the age of 18. She is also living with HIV and trying to raise Felix and two orphans from her husband’s first marriage. Needless to say, the situation is full of challenges and Felix is failing to thrive.
The second visit was to that of a little 2 ½ years old girl named Flovia. In December of 2006, Flovia’s single mother died leaving her to be raised by her grandmother. She barely weighs 13 lbs. and is no longer strong enough to walk. She, like Felix, is very developmentally delayed and regressing as time continues. Weak and frustrated, she is irritable much of the time. As I sat outside her mud hut, I saw classic signs indicative of severe malnutrition. I knew that, without immediate action, this child would not survive.
In response to the needs before us, our Tumaini na Afya team, in collaboration with the children’s families, chose to create a temporary shelter for these little ones to get the attention they are desperately needing. We are feeding them every two hours with a special formula.
developed by the World Health Organization and loving them as they so deserve to be loved.
I have just come from playing with Flovia. In the past two years of visiting her home, I have never seen her smile; but tonight, she laughed. I cannot tell you the way it touched my heart. She played peek-a-boo and was blowing kisses. She is feeding well and the swelling in her legs has decreased. She has begun to wave her little hand and say “bye”. Although my mom always used to tell me that I should say “see you later” rather than “good-bye”; for the moment, “bye” has become my favorite word.
The journey ahead for both Felix and Flovia will be long and will call for hard work and love. It costs sleep. It needs patience and commitment. It involves getting dirty. It will undoubtedly require us, at times, to be uncomfortable. But the love, which we have in Christ, will bear all things, hope all things, believe all things, and endure all things. And no matter what may come, it will never fail.
Your prayers for Felix and Flovia, as well as our entire Tumaini na Afya team, are requested and greatly appreciated.
House-to-house HIV testing.
I also wanted to share with you about an exciting and challenging HIV awareness initiative that we are preparing to launch in June. We are partnering with AMPATH, the local HIV treatment center, to do house-to-house HIV testing within our division. Tumaini na Afya will be mobilizing people within villages to receive HIV testing within their homes. The population we are trying to reach nears 120,000. If this project succeeds, AMPATH’s goal is to test 2 million people living in Western Kenya in the next two years. Again, I request your prayers. There are many battles to be fought and won.