Yesterday’s Miracle

Yesterday we met with our cultural and language tutor, who also, in God’s providence, just “happens” to be a teacher, trained in Special Education!!!  She is the sister-in-law of a man who works for the missionary organization we are renting our temporary housing from.  So, to see the miracle of God’s provision, we only knew one contact here in Lusaka, who knew one missionary on home leave for a few months who could rent us her home, and this missionary has one man working for her, who, when we asked about a language tutor, had one person he could think of who could train us….his sister-in-law… who “happens” to be a Special Education Teacher here.  Amazing, don’t you think?

So as we met with her, we told her what we felt God calling us to do- to search out children who have intellectual disability of one kind or another, cognitive delay, autism, Down syndrome, and any other developmental disabilities that aren’t just physical.  At this point, she went on to tell us that in her classes at the University of Zambia, she and her fellow students were required to go into the ‘compounds’ (where the poorest live, where thousands of people live in tiny shacks made from recycled products like corrugated tin, plywood, cardboard and or handbricks) to look for children with intellectual disabilities.  They had a terrible time even finding kids who had needs, due to the parent’s shame and resultant hiding of them.  When they did find them, often they were very sick, due to the lack of taking the child out to the doctor.  In a compound not far from where we live (maybe a 20 minute drive, though a 1 1/2 hour walk), there is a large compound that actually has a class for children who have special needs, and, yet, it only has three children in that class.  Can you even comprehend that?

So, Nancy, our tutor, is teaching us Nyanga, so we can be more useful wherever we go.  Hopefully when we go to the compounds, we’ll be able to find the kids who are hidden, and that Maggie, and Mollie and Samuel will bring them out with their engaging and winsome (and very LOUD) ways!