RoslynReynolds.com

Moses

Posted On Thursday, February 12th, 2009

Under: Service, The Healing Power of Service

Moses died last night.

When I heard, my heart ached, and I wept.

I gaze at a photo of Moses, standing next to his tall, strong, adoptive brother Timothy. Moses looks unusually hefty for an African orphan. But looks can be deceiving. The heft is not muscle and healthy tissue, but edema. The photo was taken just after Moses had left the hospital where he’d been treated for kidney failure, which had made his body bloat to nearly twice its normal size.
He still appeared bloated. He should have stayed on dialysis longer, but Timothy didn’t have the necessary funds. So Moses came ‘home’.

Where is home?

Moses doesn’t remember his first home. He was told that both his parents died shortly after his birth, presumably from AIDS.
The first home Moses remembers was with his aunt, who had taken Moses in to use as her houseboy, until they were evicted for failure to pay rent. His aunt then took Moses to a taxi park, instructing him to sit there in one position until she returned from getting “something she’d forgotten back home.”  She never returned.

He sat most of the day until it became too painful to sit in the same position, and until his hunger became too insistent, and he began wandering the streets in search of food and a place to stay. He found a polythene bag to use for a blanket, and slept in water trenches for a refuge.

Timothy, born and raised by educated parents in Uganda, felt as early as sixth grade that he had a mission to help AIDS orphans, orphans from war-torn areas, and street children. He has since set up an orphanage and school to help provide a place of safety and hope for them.

Timothy came upon Moses, age 8,  on September 13, 2007, as he was being dragged and beaten by a hungry mob, being accused of snatching a lady’s handbag. Timothy pled on Moses’ behalf, and was forced to pay 5,000 shillings to a police officer so he would intervene for Moses. Then he had to pay 20,000 shillings for the contents in the lost handbag before they would release Moses.
As Timothy directed Moses away from the mob, he asked Moses what had happened. Moses, between sobs, told him life on the streets was “too difficult than sitting on a burning stove”.

In his halting, tearful voice, Moses described the hierarchy on the streets, and how the ‘untouchables’ (those who have seniority and experience on the streets) harass the young and the newcomers, and make them do their bidding, from begging from passers-by to stealing. Moses had been ordered to steal the woman’s purse, and then the purse had been taken from him.

Timothy took Moses to see a doctor to get treatment for his injuries sustained in the beatings inflicted on him during the scuffle. Unfortunately as the doctor examined him, he discovered that Moses was HIV positive. Timothy took Moses home to the orphanage in Mukono, Uganda, but Moses’ health continued to decline from that day on.

Timothy has done all he has known to do to help Moses; all he could afford to do—but it simply wasn’t enough. And now Timothy grieves.

Why does the death one ten-year-old orphan in Uganda affect me?

First, my daughter met Timothy when she was on a humanitarian trip to Uganda. She met Moses and came to love him and the other 400+ orphans Timothy has rescued.
She returned home and shared their story with us, and we too came to care for them. She has a deep desire to help his efforts. There is so much need, and having seen that need and realizing the amount of good that can be done with relatively small amounts of money, she has been attempting to rally support for what we are calling “The Timothy Project.”

Timothy’s desire is to create a largely self-sufficient safe haven for these orphans, where they can grow and learn and become educated enough to make a difference for good in their community when they have reached adulthood. But the reality is that he has difficulty even providing adequate shelter and sufficient food for the children on a daily basis.

Every success Timothy sees we applaud and rejoice in. Every sorrow of his we, too, share. His deep sorrow at the loss of Moses we feel here in our home, thousands of miles away. If we had sent more money, could he have lived? We may never know.

Secondly, Moses’ death affects me because I believe, with John Donne, that “…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.” We all share this earth for the time that we are here. Some of us are born into prosperity, and some are born into abject poverty. I believe we will be accountable for how we relate to the humanity we hear of and mingle with during our lives.

I have pondered the sheer enormity of the problem. How many millions of AIDS orphans are there? How could I make a difference? How can I stop the suffering and dying? I am ashamed to say that I have sometimes been so overwhelmed with my inability to help, and the seeming hopelessness of the situation, that I have distanced myself, telling myself it is not my realm to be meddling in, and that there will always be the poor among us.

But then I remember Ebeneezer Scrooge’s comment in Dickens’ Christmas Carol, when he is told that some poor would rather die than go to the poorhouse. Scrooge replies,  “Then let them die and decrease the surplus population.”

Am I doing the same when I choose to put their suffering out of my mind and go on with my life? Just who is to be considered “surplus population”, anyway? Does it truly have anything to do with the amount of this world’s goods one has or has not?

If a tragic death does not touch me, is my heart not hardened and am I not useless in God’s hands as a force for good?

Marian Wright Edelman, the renowned children’s advocate, said, “Take at least one step for just one child and you will make a difference.”

A comment Mother Teresa made comes to mind when I consider these thoughts: ““If you can’t feed a hundred people, then feed just one.”

I can do that. And I can work and pray for the day when I can feed more. And I can determine never to forget Moses, so that others that come after him might have the chance to live on.

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