NEVER NORMAL

Working in one of the poorest sub-Saharan countries of the world, there are things that you get used to like frequent power failures, water cuts, and myriad diseases waiting for the opportunity to knock us or one of our staff members down for days or weeks. There are other things that you want to get used to like the collisions between your home culture and the new culture. 

Then, there are the thing that you never want to get used to, like the 24-ounce, month-old baby staring into your eyes as you try to comfort screams pouring from an empty stomach.  You never want to get used to the one that arrived too late for even the most intensive medical intervention but whose fading, agonized cries echo in your heart.  You never want to get used to that.  Never.

More than one million internally displaced persons (IDPs) have been chased from their farms, villages, and lives by Islamic terrorists, a history of poverty and malnutrition, rains disrupted by climate change, and a global pandemic forcing the world-wide reallocation of already insufficient resources. Bug-eyed babies arrive at the Oasis of Hope ready to fall from the knife’s edge of existence.  You never want to get used to that.  Never.

We are encountering an increasing number of profoundly malnourished babies and distraught mamas at the Oasis.  There are nearly 80-babies currently in our feeding program and the number continues to grow, now because of twins and a record number of triplets that will force an underfed, nursing mother to make a heartbreaking decision.  Our resources and reserves run low.  We do everything we can to cut expenses to continue to buy costly formula.  We are horrified at the prospect of asking Social Service or the hospitals to not send any more babies to the Oasis.

As we prepare to celebrate the birth of Him who came that “man no more may die,” we hold each of these blanket-wrapped, tiny bundles and pray over them.  We have no adorned tree, twinkling lights, or colorful papers.  Each family goes home with cans of formula, rice and beans, mosquito repellant, mosquito netting, perhaps a soccer ball for an older child, maybe small bags of roasted peanuts, and a good deal more hope than when they arrived.

“Born to raise the sons of earth,

Born to give them second birth.

Hark the herald angels sing,

‘Glory to the newborn King.’”

 

We pray that each of you will enjoy a most meaningful Christmas and a blessed year filled with renewed hope.

 

“Let all within us Praise His Holy name
Christ is the Lord, O praise His name forever!

His power and glory evermore proclaim.’”