We pray for children . . .

Above is a picture of Acona and Pelalani, two of the incredible lively and vibrant children at the Edith Benson Babies Home in Durban. The Children here are usually placed temporarily after they are orphaned or while their parents or families are too sick or poor to take care of them. It's a wonderful facility. The staff that work directly with the children are patient and compassionate and extend and incredible amount of care for the 80 plus children that live there. "Many of the staff are positive," Michelle tells us, "As much as we watch children literally bounce back from their deathbeds thanks to Anti-Retro-Virals, many of the staff with the virus are too ashamed or stubborn to seek treatment for themselves." I asked Michelle how much she thinks the children know about the disease. She says most of them do not understand, so the staff has to be very vigilant, in terms of treating minor cuts and scrapes. Less than half the children here are positive. Mostly you cannot see the effects of HIV in the children, although more than a handful have visible cognitive and physical effects of fetal alcohol syndrome. One of my colleagues took a picture of a children’s book there, called "Brenda Has a Dragon in her Blood." I’m not sure there's any other way to convey such a disease to children, whose lives are surrounded by it.

The children here are offered more than many of them ever have or sill be in their own homes. Their physical needs are met and exceeded by this incredible NGO, and it's dedicated administrators. Unfortunately, despite an extremely high standard of physical care, nutrition, education, and recreation, the childrens' emotional needs cannot be met. Michelle willingly admits this and says that is where we come in. The children run to us with open arms, excited to be embraced by loving young adults ready to play and laugh with them. In the baby room, every child reaches up expecting to be held. The toddler room is a different story. My friend Taneka told me later, “I looked around thinking where’s Sasha? And then I saw you under a pile of kids,” literally. There were four on my lap (two of who had started crying in order to fight for a spot), and three had pulled me flat onto the floor and seated themselves on my stomach and chest. Upon standing, tiny hands plunged into my pockets. One child pulled on my hand another was crawling up my leg. The only way to get them off of me was to sashay around the room like the pied piper with a line of them following me. You can bet I did just that.

I would have assumed that this might be the most non-challenging environment I’ve faced yet, but I found the opposite. I was severely taxed and exhausted by the emotional cravings and missed developmental milestones of these children as a result of former living conditions. I fed a bottle to a one-year-old who could not sit up on his own much less hold his own bottle. I met a fourteen year old who looked like she was eight. Not one face in the home was disheartening, but somehow I struggled in my own head with the type of future these children face.

These children bring to mind a poem by Ina J. Hughs called, “WE PRAY FOR CHILDREN”

We pray for children
who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks,
who can never find their shoes.

And we pray, for those
who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
who never "counted potatoes,"
who are born in places where we wouldn't be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children
who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we pray for those
who never get dessert,
who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who can't find any bread to steal,
who don't have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser,
whose monsters are real.

We pray for children
who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed,
and never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at
and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who have never seen a dentist,
who aren't spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children
who want to be carried and for those who must,
for those we never give up on
and for those who don't get a second chance.
For those we smother . . .
and for those who will grab the hand of anybody
kind enough to offer it.



This is the In-ground Tramp at E.B. Durring naptime, and before the older children returned from school. Sarah, Kelly, Taneka and I made excelent use of the trampoline.