Sad News Today

Very sad news from our children’s home in Congo.One of our children, Philemon, died yesterday. He was 6 years old.

He went to sleep last night showing symptoms of malaria and never woke up. His brothers and sisters found him beside them this morning, believing he was still asleep.

Malaria is treatable. But when the fever becomes severe, treatment cannot wait. Rebecca did not take him to the clinic because she did not want to burden me. They know how difficult things have been financially for the organization and how much stress we have been under trying to keep everything afloat. I am so sick that they worried more about protecting me from another expense than getting Philemon medical care.

It is hard to process the contrast of this work sometimes. One day we are celebrating Schadrack graduating from a private university in the United States with a mathematics degree and job opportunities in Silicon Valley. The next day, a 6-year-old boy dies because we did not get him to a local clinic in eastern Congo in time.