Meet Peterson. He is a quiet young man, approximately 2 years old. About a week ago we met him as members of a medical team went thru McDonal treating patients. One of the leaders of the community alerted Barb, the "elder" local missionary (sorry Barb) about this young man. When we first saw him, I have to say I thought he would live for maybe 7/10 days and die. He could hardly hold his head up, and could only stand in one spot, w/o any life in his eyes or movement of limbs. We were told he had severe diarrhea and could not keep food in him. Sunday at missionary meeting we talked with Elsie and Bobbie, two missionaries at Canaan orphange that have been working with the Medical Mamba program, coincidently started by a pediatrician in St. Louis, Mo. It is a program to take kids who are highly at risk and nourish them back to health with "super charged peanut butter" (Mamba in Creole) so they have a fighting chance. Peterson, on the scale used to measure the need for intervention, was critical. It started on Tuesday, and by Friday he has more life and is eating food every 2 hours or so. He seemed to almost smile once when I was running my fingers up his belly. He will also just let people cuddle and love him, which unfortunately he received not at all from his family. The truth is we believe the family thought he would die anyway and just stopped feeding him. His mother saw him yesterday and, I am told, couldn't have cared less about him. She is a prostitute and has many issues. Peterson was often left in the "care" of his 4 year old brother....for the entire day or longer. The adults in many cases just don't care whether the kids live or die, at least for many in this community and others. Well, Peterson is starting to thrive, and he was officially offered a position in the orphanage by the entire staff tonight. He kind of smiled, so we took that as a yes!
Later as we were talking some, the conversation turned to "what do you do?" when a kid is dying? You do whatever you can with as much as you have. No one wants to think of the hundreds or thousands of other kids like him we can't save. It's too hard. Peterson, however, will live.
It was a very good day today.
Djebenis tout moun
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