The "Toilet" Baby

If you’re reading this, you probably read “The Shamba Baby”, in which I told the story of  Neema who was found crying on a farm by the woman who then raised her.  If that story was moving, this one perhaps moreso.  Today I sat with a handsome young man who is 16 years old and entering Form 3 which is grade 10.  He is a very intelligent boy who like math, physics and biology, and aspires to study medicine to become a doctor.  He is very polite, quiet yet friendly, and was not embarrassed or “proud” to smile at us.  He speaks English fairly well and likes to play football (soccer), as most young African boys.

Yusufu lives with his “grandmother” and two sisters. The mother who raised him only comes to visit, but lives elsewhere due to work responsibilities. She must work to help pay rent for the house.  This woman works as a nurse or medical assistant.  That was  how she came to meet Yusufu as an infant. She was working at the hospital to which he was admitted after he was found “discarded” in the hole of an outdoor toilet.  I’m sure we can’t imagine it to be true, just as the traveller who went to avail of that toilet couldn’t imagine it was a baby’s cry he heard.  However, it was a baby and when he went to find the police, they had to remove the toilet walls and ground in order to recover the baby without harm.  Thankfully, the baby’s cry was heard in time else I could not tell this story and one of the nurse’s working that day was moved enough to take the infant as her own.  She has received assistance from ChildCARE Plus since Yusufu was 6 days old!

It somehow takes too long to sink into the mind that this could be a reality, but the stories are endless.  And God, the Great, Loving Creator and Masterplanner, knows His children.  Again I wonder how He will use this young man, and I smile at how Satan must shiver with defeat when such a cruel plan of destruction is overthrown by the providence of God.  He comes to kill and destroy but God comes to save the life when at the sound of a baby’s cry death is robber of its victim.  To be sure, such a beginning warrants a triumphant end, and through CCP, sponsors have the privilege of being involved in that triumph.  However, we remember that only God can possibly take such dark events and turn them into a beautiful portrait of life, light and hope.