Another Talibe story.

Shortly after we returned to our town and began to get settled into our home, I was visited by one of our neighborhood boys. He was coming to greet us, since we had not yet seen us. He is one of the boys who had befriended my children and yet he has no mother and father. For whatever reason, he had been given to a religious leader as a young boy.

While talking with him, I noticed that his finger was swollen. Upon inspection, I discovered a large gash on his finger had gone untreated and was now infected.  He said it had been a long time, maybe a couple of weeks, since he got wounded.  I tried to treat it, but I knew that putting on some antibiotic ointment and a bandage this late was not going to do much.

I was so frustrated. I was frustrated that he had not been taken to the doctor when it happened to get stitches. I was frustrated that he was still not taken to the doctor even when it got infected. I had house guests at the time, as well, who were thankfully wise enough to know what type of medicine he needed to treat the infection.

I weighed my options of taking him to the hospital and waiting forever to get told a whole host of medications that he did not necessarily need or going to the pharmacy to just get an antibiotic. I finally went to the pharmacy to purchase the medicine. I had the boy come to my house each morning and evening for 10 days to get the medicine from me. I honestly did not trust his care taker to give him the medicine, if he was not willing to take him to get the medicine himself. I changed his bandage every couple of days and applied antibiotic ointment as well. I watched him take the antibiotic, which he had never had. He chewed it up. Yuck!  Nonetheless, he took it.

After a week, he was impressed that it was healing. I told him we could not stop until the antibiotic was gone. It healed and the boy was able to go back to doing what he needed to do. It breaks my heart to see these boys so not cared for by those who are supposed to be teaching them about God. Of course, even if he had been with his family and had gotten hurt, it is possible that he would not have gotten treatment then either. They just would not have had the money for the medicine. It is so humbling when just twelve dollars stands between them and healing. We are so very rich!