Alone.

Imagine your parents had died. 

You are left alone with your two young sisters.

All three of you are placed in an underfunded orphanage and you receive barely a scrap of food. You sleep on the ground. You hate life, you try not to let your younger sisters see your tears, you try to be strong and yet it seems life is so futile…

Then one day a visitor comes for you. A man you know helps out people, you know he has orphaned kids staying at his house and you beg him to take you with him, you plead and cry and explain how bad the situation is. You see that it affects him and he wants to take you with him, but he can’t. He is not permitted to just take children from the orphanage at a whim.

The kind man leaves with a sad look in his eyes.

You discuss with your sisters and together you scheme, you bide your time and then one day you do it, all three of you run away together. You travel for days, over 70 kms, until you finally reach your destination.

The kind man sees you walk in his gate and he laughs, he giggles and smiles and he welcomes you, as he hasn’t taken you himself there are no repercussions from the orphanage, they don’t even know where you have gone. You now have a safe place to stay. You are asked questions about your background, photos are taken of you, you receive news you are now ‘sponsored’.

This means you now get food everyday, you stay in a comfortable dormitory, you have your own bed, you are surrounded by other people your age, you go to school, you go to Sunday school, you can now live like a 10 year old should be able to, surrounded by security and care.

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress” James 1: 27