nutrition center stories

Someone asked me for some stories on the kids in the center. I have many but I'll share a few here at the blog:

The first story is about Kelley. He is a young man of around 13. We don't know his exact age. That is a common occurrence around here. People often don't have birth certificates and birthdays are not really celebrated. So, we are guessing 13. You can't tell by his size that he is 13. My 10 year-old, Tana, is about 75 lbs. Kelley weighs 52 lbs and is the same height as Tana. But he is very smart. He comes from a household where his dad is a voodoo witch doctor. Kelley's dad's name is Price. Price has been a voodoo witch doctor all of his adult life. Now he is an old man (he is probably around 50 but looks likes he is 75, easy) and blind. He has glaucoma and we can't get him the medicine needed for this eye disease. He has to take it every day and that is just not possible here. Price has heard the gospel many times but still goes back to the voodoo religion. His wife, Kelley and his brothers and sisters all want to leave voodoo and be Christians but the father resists. When Kelley started hanging out at the nutrition center, we first said that he couldn't come because he was not from our community. He lives in the community next to ours. But, he kept coming, not to eat, but to hear the Bible stories and songs. We talked to him and learned more about his family life and situation. We visited his house. Kelley lives in a house that some Christian in years past made for them because they lived in severe poverty. Now they have a small block house with a dirt floor. They never had a lot of land to put into gardens to feed the family and now Price is blind and can't work it anyway. Kelley won our hearts because of his sweetness of spirit. His sister, Majorie, age 8 is also a sweet little girl. They have been coming to the center for 2 years now. They eat with us and we often catch Kelley taking some of his food home for his dad because they don't have anything at home. Kelley and Majorie are going to church with us every Sunday morning and attend the Sunday afternoon church. They are active in the junior church. Their clothes come from us--shoes, pants, shirt, everything. They are going to school for the first time in their lives. Pray for Kelley. His older brother did not have the advantage of hearing of Jesus's love and he is a young man that beats his brother and is angry all the time. He never got to go to school and spends his days in the streets. We call Kelley "Pastor" now because he loves to sing and pray for the center. He is always the first to come and last to go. He is our song leader and always leads the rest of the children in their verses. He loves to play soccer but he is not strong enough to play with the older boys on the regular team. When teams from the US come, he practices the English he knows with them and makes them feel very welcome. Kelley Cadet is a very special boy.

Jisline and Jislene Joseph are the reasons we first started the nutrition centers. We came down to disciple and teach lay pastors. We didn't have a plan to feed children. But we were visiting families in the community one day and came across our neighbors to the north that have 10 children. They had 4 children and then 3 sets of twins. The first 3 children are pretty well developed but you can tell that the addition of 7 more children was too much for the family. The Joseph family were also heavily involved voodoo. They live in a stick and mud house that is probably the size of a typical American's living room. No beds, no cupboards, no floor, thatch roof that leaks. When we went visiting we saw Jisline and Jislene were in the 'kitchen.' This is outdoors where 3 large stones are placed on the ground so that a fire can burn and cook the food. The two 5 year-old twins had plates in their hands that were full of ashes from the fire. They were eating the ashes with their fingers--scooping it up into their mouths. Their mouths were ringed with ashes. That is when God called us to open the nutrition centers. Jisline and Jislene are terribly stunted. They are 7 1/2 years old right now, 27 inches tall, and 38 lbs. I have a 2 1/2 year old niece that weighs 35 lbs! They had red hair and bloated bellies when we started. Their bellies and hair are normal now and they gained lbs and inches in the years since we started the center. But, it takes a long time to correct all the neglect they received nutritionally. What has been such a blessing is that they used to be so quiet. In the beginning, these 5 year olds wouldn't say anything--we found out it was because they didn't know very many words, yet. They didn't even form sentences. Now they are chatterboxes. Jisline, the girl, is still shy but Jislene is the biggest little flirt. Jisline always has one finger in her mouth. He loves to hold on to team members and sit on their laps. He smiles all the time and giggles. We can even get him to lead the songs for us now. Jisline is afraid of our dogs but Jislene loves to show how brave he is by touching one of our dogs (and our dogs are bigger than he is) with one finger and then darting away. Neither of these kids go to school. It is not because of funds. We have sent them to school already but their mental development was not able to handle first grade, yet. Hard to believe. Also, they still get sick often. Jisline burned her hand last year and it took months and months to heal because their poor immune systems. They get skin diseases all the time due to sleeping on dirt floors and not having clean clothes. Claudius, the father of Jisline and Jislene, recently came to know Christ as his Savior and to burn all his fetishes that tied him to voodoo. The whole family comes to the Sunday afternoon church at our place. The older sister just was baptized. It is very hard for this family because of their poverty and their large family. Please pray for these kids and their parents. Pray that they continue to trust in the Lord.

God bless you all! Krissie