*Apologizes if this hit your inbox twice, we seemed to have trouble with the initial delivery*
Today’s post is about a teenager named Clinton who lives in Kenya. Now depending on where you live in the United States, Kenya is roughly 8,500 miles away so oftentimes we consciously or unconsciously will say to ourselves, “It’s not really any of my concern what happens 8,500 away, I can’t do anything to help anyway” but we are here to tell you that is not true. Clinton and millions like him are relying on regular people just like you and me to step up and help.
Deaf Child Hope partnered with a new school in Kenya a couple of months ago and Clinton attends that partner school. He is thirteen years old, turning fourteen in August. He’s been attending this special school for children who are Deaf since 2019 which means that he first learned language and received any sort of education for the first time at 8 years old.
Clinton was the firstborn child in his household. When he was a toddler and his mother realized he couldn’t hear she sent him away to live with his grandparents. Kenya, and many countries in the developing world, don’t have the resources or education around deafness to support families or help with early intervention. In fact, most Deaf children in poverty face a similar fate to Clinton and are left to fend for their own survival.
Unfortunately, Clinton’s life with his grandparents was not an easy one. His grandfather felt the same as his mother and had no patience or willingness to accommodate Clinton’s hearing loss and therefore treated Clinton with resentment and aggression. His grandmother did what she could to protect and love him but last year in 2023 she passed away and Clinton lost the only family member that had ever taken care of him.
Fortunately, since Clinton had found acceptance and safety at school, the school now allows him (and others) to stay on campus during weekends and school breaks. Clinton likes playing football (soccer) with his friends and classmates and has told his teachers that when he graduates he’d like to continue to University to become a doctor.
Clinton’s story is a hard one to hear and we don’t even know most of the details. How a mother could abandon her son, or a grandfather could abuse his grandson is something most of us will never understand. What we can understand though is that God has asked us to pay attention. It doesn’t matter if it’s next door or 8,500 miles away, God loves all of his children and asks us to step up and take care of the parentless.
James 1:27. “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”
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