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On my last trip to Tanzania in February, I was asked to pay a visit to a young man in the village of Bashay. I was told he was crippled and perhaps there might be something we could do for him.
Upon arriving at his stick and mud house, his mother told us he was now at his sister's
house. She said she needed a break from taking care of him and took him there the previous week. She pointed and said, "It's just there." She assured us it was only a short distance and climbed aboard our Land Cruiser to show us the way. I have come to learn that "just there" and "a short distance" are meaningless terms of measurement in Africa! After about 30 minutes and six kilometers over very rough "road" strewn with large rocks and deep holes, and putting the Land Cruiser through its paces up a steep incline, we arrived at another mud and stick house perched on the top of a hill. And, there, in the dirt yard in front of the house sat the young man we had come to see. His mother had pushed him all the way there from her house in an old, rickety wheelchair.
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Elishuhuda |
I suppose you could call him "crippled," but his condition went far beyond what most of us think of when we hear that term. His arms and legs were so badly malformed and twisted that they were useless. And his mind was just as badly damaged; he was unable to speak, made no eye contact and I suspected he was unaware that we were there.
Conversation with his mother and sister revealed that he had been this way since birth, 27 years ago. "What is his name?" I asked. His mother said, "Elishuhuda." That really caught me off-guard! It came as something of a shock! Elishuhuda literally means "Witness of God."
Since returning to the U.S., I have pondered just what that might mean. Why would anyone name a crippled child "Witness of God"? There are, I suppose, any number of answers to that question, but the one I have settled on is quite simple: Elishuhuda, sitting there mute in the dirt, witnesses to the fact that some of us have been greatly blessed, while others, for whatever the reason, have been born into a life of suffering and need. And, that it is clearly God's intention for us who have been given so much to do whatever we can for those who have so little. Though unable to speak a word, Elishuhuda is telling us,"I am here so that you may be the person God has called you to be." At least that was his "witness" to me that day.
What does Elishuhuda have to do with the mission of Godparents for Tanzania? Only this: There are thousands of Tanzanian young people who are also "crippled" and left to sit in the dirt in the front yards of desperately poor families. Their disability is not a physical one, but an educational one. They are "educationally disabled." They are crippled for lack of an opportunity to go to school. We can't change Elishuhuda's condition, but we can change the condition of bright, eager kids who are just waiting for a hand-up, someone who will help them stand on their own two feet and dust off the dirt by sending them to school. Elishuhuda's witness is their witness, too: "I am here so that you may be the person God has called you to be."
Postscript: We have already raised the funds needed to provide assistance to Elishuhuda. On this visit, one of our G4TZ Clinical Officers, David Sabas, accompanied me and he is arranging palliative care visits to Elishuhuda to insure he has adequate nutrition and to supervise his condition. These funds will provide Elishuhuda a comfortable platform to sit on outside with a hole cut in the center and a pot below. He will have a bed with mattress protector that is built low enough to the ground so, if he falls off, he will not be hurt. He has been given adequate clothing. That is what we can do for him and that is what we have done.
Dwayne J. Westermann, President Godparents for Tanzania
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n a developing country and what it means to be a young person growing up there.
