The Oasis Foundation
Grace Village
Ethiopia

Melat - a picture of what we are living day by day - May 11, 2008

“I have two babies with me, Melat three months whose mother died last Sunday, she is HIV + poor wee darling, she is so thin, poorly fed from birth and it shows. The other baby is Daniel, a three week old newborn, whose two triplet brothers have already died, one just a couple of days ago so the family rushed to get him here before he too died. He is like a little very old shrivelled up old man, still with the body hair of premature birth with eyes that look out like they know all the heart ache of the world.; poor we souls.

The children at Grace Village all wanted to see their new brother and sister and know all about them, what of their mothers, their fathers are they alive or dead. Questions no child in our western world would ever ask. One lad of twelve just comes to hold the hand of any one of the babies. There is a tenderness amongst these children that is heart wrenching and a touch of God’s graciousness to each one of us – because He reached out for us, so now we reach out to others.

When I was washing the babies soon after their arrival Aster (6 years old), just sat there looking on with tears running down her face; all she could say was ‘miskin’ - poor soul. Then she started asking questions about who they are where they came from wise beyond her years, today she came ‘to help bathe the babies’. So after finishing with Melat, I asked her to hold her for me while I bathed Daniel, the wonder of it all was that this rather fractious little baby was totally at home in ‘her big sisters’ arms and she fell asleep with Aster gently patting her back.

Melat was febrile last night and I prayed for her, knowing how vulnerable she is to infection, today I thought she was better, but sadly she died just an hour ago ... Never was a baby mourned over more than when our beloved little house mothers heard and all came and wept for this poor wee darling. We have five HIV + children are all on anti retroviral drugs now. Poor, poor little ones – no wonder Jesus said ‘suffer the little children to come unto me’, it is truly the suffering children who come to Him and love Him.