Emmanuel Part II

Today Emmanuel and his mother Doreen left for Ghana.  You can read about Emmanuel Here. He needs heart surgery and Ghana is the closest country with a pediatric cardiologist that can give him the diagnosis that he needs to qualify for help with charity organizations that sponsor children's heart surgery.

She also was able to escort another young girl named Faith who has a similar heart problem.  We heard through the grapevine that a friend with Orphan Relief & Rescue, working with a friend with Orphan Relief Network were trying to help Faith to get to Ghana to get her condition properly diagnosed.  She is an orphan and since Doreen was already going it saved ORN from having to send her with a separate escort.  Here's the three of them just before heading to the airport (and of course Blessing had to be in the picture too).

Faith came over last night to stay the night to make sure she got to our house on time for the airport trip.  A couple hours after she arrived I was thinking along the lines of Paul Harvey's old "we don't live in one world" quote.  She is 5 years old but didn't know how to use a toilet, and after she got done using the toilet she turned around and tried to wash her hands in the toilet bowl.  I showed her the sink and hand soap and after the 7th time she went back for more soap had to put it up.  Oh the joys of simple things like hand soap.  

I'm sure it was a night of many firsts for Faith, and today will be her first airplane flight.  Next week it will be back to the orphanage though.  Such is the plight of so many Liberian children who came out on the wrong side of the birth lottery.  It is fun to host children like Faith but at the same time breaks your heart to know that what Blessing knows as every day life is almost like a fairy tale.  Not to take away from the work that ORR and ORN do here, they improve the lives or orphans dramatically, but it is still...well a different world.

Blessing was thrilled to have Faith to play with for the night and asked...well more demanded I get a picture of them together before she left.

So after Faith and Emmanuel return, their information will be passed to Gift of Life for Emmanuel and Rooftop519 for Faith, and hopefully they will get the surgery they need in the next couple months.  Please continue to keep both of them in your prayers.