Reality

Something I didn't expect to see when I came here, was what it looked like for the Baby House to take a new child into the house. I have actually been able to see this happen a few times since I have been here. When Justin and I arrived, Hawa had been here only two days and Antonio came into the house the second week we were in Mozambique.

Just last week, I really got an up close look at the need for what Pieter and Rika are doing here at the Baby House. It has been very eye opening for me to experience the arrival of brothers Junior and Abacari. Last Friday, Allison, who is here long-term with All Nations Mozambique, and I had just returned from attempting to celebrate Independence Day as best as you can here in Matola, Mozambique. As we returned home, Pieter received a phone call from a police officer who told him that he had two abandoned children at the police station and had nowhere to take them.

Two women had brought the two boys to the police station. They had found the them screaming by the road outside of their house, as the grandmother of the boys was abandoning them on the roadside. The two women yelled at the grandmother trying to stop her, but she just yelled back that she couldn't do this any longer. She left the boys with a suitcase and two plastic bags of clothing. The two boys are named Junior (three years old) and Abacari (one year old). That is all we really know about them as the women, who found the two boys, couldn't really get much more information from the fleeing grandmother.

As the two new boys arrived at the house, it amazed me that just two hours ago they were left on a street corner by themselves with what seemed to be no hope. As they came into the house they were hungry, and we were able to feed them. They were dirty and without much clothing, and we were able to bathe them and give them new clothes. This experience has just really opened my eyes to the reality in which Pieter and Rika face day after day in Mozambique. It is a daily occurrence for children in Mozambique to be abandoned or orphaned due to family that just can't care for them or because their family has died of AIDS.

What God has called Pieter and Rika to do for these children really matters. This is important to the heart of God. God is using them to literally save children's lives. That is huge and something that I have seen up close while I have had the chance to be a part of what God is doing in Mozambique.