After 6 visits to our carpentry site,

a father of a child who has significant special needs, both intellectual disability as well as one entire side of her body affected physically, divulged to us that he has this child! Can you believe it took that many visits for him to tell us about his daughter? Her name is Loveness, and she is 13, with contracted muscles in her arm and hand so tight that she doesn’t use it for anything. She walks, but drags one leg, and then walks on the side of her foot. As I talked with her, I realized the extent of her cognitive delay, as well. We made an appointment with Isaac the prosthetist, and they took a taxi and met me there.
To back up a bit, this is surely a moment that God ordained before time, and that we had nothing to do with, in and of ourselves. Paul, the Dad, is a welder who makes swings. He makes his swings at the carpentry place we went to first, the place we had wrongly, and quite inadvertently gotten a reference to. The missionary who recommended him thought he had given us a different number, knowing full well that the carpenter we hired was a not-on-the-ethical-side-of-things fellow. Each time we went back to check on the first chair we were having made, we ran into Paul, as he worked on his swings, and as we looked for our carpenter who had gone missing. And, for those of you readers that know our kids, you’ll know that Mollie went on his swings EVERY time we were there. So we had plenty of time to talk with Paul. He also was the one who told us when our carpenter was in jail, that enabled us to get every penny of our deposit back. The final time we heard about his daughter, the sixth visit, was on Beth’s birthday. We had gone to the carpentry place to price and compare handmade dressers, desks, and chairs for her room, since she had been given money toward buying those things locally for her birthday. As Eric and Beth turned over each drawer, desk and chair to look at craftsmanship and price, I was standing by the swings with Mollie (of course!), and Paul came over to ask what we do here in Lusaka. Funny that it took him six visits! They say the third time is the charm, but not here. I guess it took him that long to feel comfortable enough to ask what specifically we do, and then to divulge that his daughter has needs, and to see what we could do for her. So, I called Isaac to see when he’d be in, and we made the appointment for Thursday (two days ago), and he evaluated her, and will make a brace for one of her feet. I am trying to find out the physical therapy clinic in her area, and will take her next week. She will need physical therapy daily for awhile, done by her family after being trained by a therapist, and followed up by me, and then, Isaac thought he could make a small brace for her at night while she sleeps to train her hand to be in a more ‘normal’ position. So, it was a good day of caring for a child who has needs, yet has a loving family, and no resources to care for her needs. We will need a donor for her foot brace, and one for her hand brace whenever she gets it, down the road a bit. If you are interested, please email info@specialhopenetwork.org, and let us know. We’ll let you know the price. The last one was under $100, so I think this one will be as well. The moral of the story is to keep going to the same places, and keep letting Mollie swing on their swings. At some point, someone will trust you enough to tell you about their child that they don’t usually speak about. And, that is worth a swing or two, don’t you think?