This is Ruth.
Ruth was born on Aug. 25, 2002. Ruth may have missed school in her early years due to lack of finances within her family because she has just recently completed grade 1. While I am not certain of how long Ruth has been at the orphanage, it has been confirmed for me that her mother died and that someone drove Ruth to the center of the city and abandoned her there. Ruth is precious and sweet. The thing that stands out in my mind about her is that she is a bit shorter than the other kids her age but twice as solid. Every time I hug her and go to lift her off the ground, I'm reminded of how powerful her little body feels. I can barely hold her. She's heavy. I wonder if she's carrying all of that heaviness in her heart or in her memory. These abandonment's really break my heart.
Abandonment is a common practice and a theme that you might begin to recognize as we continue to feature a different child every week. I am sure that many of our readers have traveled and served in 3rd world countries but to those of you who may not have had that experience yet, it is truly eye opening. So many countries in Africa have very small concentrated areas of wealth while the vast majority have nothing. Most governments are not "for the people" but for the concentrated groups of the wealthy and they are operated like kingdoms instead of governments. This sets up little abandoned sweethearts like Ruth to suffer; not having anything for today or for the scope of her tomorrows. Unfortunately the flaws are not likely to get worked out in Ruth's lifetime. Mommas will continue to die of Aids and nearby acquaintances will continue to take orphaned kids and drop them off in the center of the city to wait for the trash collectors to figure out what to do with them.
I recently came across two sets of statistics about this country...(Zim.bab.we). Between data provided by both Unicef and CIA it seems that there are between 1.5 - 2 million orphans in this country. Keep in mind that this country is smaller than Texas. Only 2% of these children have a safe place to stay and the majority are not receiving an education. While I do not know what God has planned for their futures, I know that He has called us to make it broader, wider, deeper and more hopeful. He has asked us to sew into the least of these by giving up the most of ourselves, for Him.
Thank you so much to all who do that with and for BFGO. If I could pick up each one of you and squeeze you I would.
Here I am squeezing Ruth...
Ruth needs an education sponsor and an essentials sponsor.
Please consider going to bat for sweet Ruth.
God bless all,
melissa irwin
executive director
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