Life is a Gift

Life is a gift.

The ability to dream about your future.

The ability to make plans.

The ability to breath in and out.

The ability to laugh and sing and never wonder if today was your last.

The ability to love and build a life with someone.

The ability to take the simple things for granted every single day.

We teach our children good manners because we believe one day they will need to use them at their job. We send them to school because one day they will go to college. We joke with them about their futures- telling the toddler with her baby dolls that she will make a wonderful mother. We expect children to have a future- we take this for granted.

But what if they didn’t? What of that day when the doctor sits you down and says, “we have done treatment after treatment and test after test and there is no use.”

What if the doctor tells you the amount of money you must pay to save your child’s life is more than you will make in a year? What of that moment when your dreams about your child’s career, success, wife, children, college all fade away when you realize they may never happen.
You took life for granted and now it is slipping away.

His name is Ajuma and he is not a fictional character to make you care about the poor. He is not a statistic for governments to write in their books. He is not a child we use to get sympathy and funds from you. He is a real live boy who has held my hand and whispered greetings into my ears. And he is dying all because the money is not there.

His father sat in the hospital with the doctor shaking his head sadly and he called us and told us, “they are saying he needs a kidney transplant to live and it will cost more than 6 million shillings ($3,000)”. We gasp and ask him to repeat. We don’t have that kind of money. We’re trying to fundraise for so many other things- we don’t have a clue how to stop and fundraise for this. For one surgery, for one boy.

But this is a life. A child’s life. And money is just paper. How can we even think about saying no?
So we said yes. Yes we will fight for your boy. Yes we will strive for the day he graduates school. We will work for the moment he welcomes his child into the world. We will do all we can to give him a future.

But we can’t do it alone. We need your help.

If you know ANYONE with contacts in the medical world PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE e-mail me and let me know. We have been advised that the best course of action would be to try and get Ajuma to the states to perform the surgery. We have a copy of all his medical records that we can send to any doctor who might be able to advice us in how to proceed. You can e-mail me at megster16@gmail.com or e-mail my friend Kelsey who is also working with Ajuma at tub56099@temple.edu

And of course we welcome and love your prayers.

Ajuma’s father has left his farm, family, and home to stay by his son’s bedside for over a month now. He has not given up hope even when no one can promise him his son will be okay. Ajuma’s father is still fighting… and so are we.