One Heart at a Time

by Delilah

  I sat quietly listening to World Vision team members tell me about their presence in Ghana. They showed me photos of the country and graphs illustrating how many children were malnourished or starving. Dr. Joe spoke of his years working in the camp and how he helped to install massive poly tanks to store fresh water, but how the system had fallen into disrepair and been abandoned. World Vision found it impossible to carry out their model for sustainability in a camp with a transient population and so many foreign and domestic governments trying to run it, so they had withdrawn their field officers many years prior.

  But yes, they could tell me there was a woman named Winifred Ticley living in the camp and yes, she was caring for children who were actually her younger siblings. The family had fled on foot when their small village in Liberia was attacked and their mother was killed. Winifred had carried the youngest child on her back and urged the other two to walk as they trudged across several hundred miles to safety.

  I asked if I could present a check to World Vision to be used to purchase food, water, clothes, and mattresses as well as pay rent on a small apartment for Winifred and the children. They agreed to facilitate the process of helping this little family unit stay together, and I stood up to go feeling very accomplished and satisfied with my efforts. As I was leaving, a tall, thin man named David Snow said, “Great, you have just helped save the lives of four people in the refugee camp. What do you intend to do for the eighty thousand others who are dying?”

  I smiled and (in retrospect) smugly replied, “They didn’t write to me; they aren’t my problem.”

  I walked a few steps out the door toward my beat-up old van when I felt God’s wrath fall upon me so hard I literally crumpled to my knees crying. I turned and rushed back in to catch the team before they had dispersed. Most were still in the doorway gathering their computers and water bottles, when I wiped my tears and apologized for my offhand comment. “I am so sorry,” I managed to choke out. “But I’m just one person. What can I do?”

  I didn’t have a passport. I’d never been anywhere outside the United States except for a few trips to Mexico and Canada. That was the extent of my worldly travels. No long weekends in the South of France, no strolls along the Thames, no trips to Ireland to see the lush green fields and flocks of snowy-white sheep, though when I dreamed of travel, this had been my vision.

  I’d spent all of my adult life working at various radio stations around the country and raising children. When I did allow myself to fantasize about world travels, it certainly wasn’t to visit a refugee camp in impoverished West Africa. In fact, the notion had never entered my mind.

  I stepped out of the little wood shack my father had built for the kids in the neighborhood to protect us from the damp Oregon rain as we waited for the school bus. The bus shack was at the end of a long gravel road, beneath the abutments of a bridge that crossed over the Coos River. Our home, a hundred-plus-year-old farmhouse, was about a mile away at the end of Lillian Slough (pronounced slew), a finger of tidal water once used to store logs before they were floated to the mill that sat just to the north of the bridge.

  My straight blond hair hung down my back and I proudly wore a beautiful new coat my mother had made for me. I’d just turned seven years old and was in second grade. We were dirt poor, but I never knew it at the time. I was completely oblivious to the financial struggles my parents faced on a daily basis.

  My dad Richard, known as Dick, worked hard to provide for his small family. I had an older brother, Matthew, a younger sister, DeAnna, and Mom was pregnant with the fourth, Timothy, who came along in the fall of that year.

  On this particular cold, wet day, I was feeling quite lovely wearing my new coat. My mother’s old sewing machine was set up in the cheery kitchen of the farmhouse we rented. It was the original homestead on an eighty-acre milk-cow farm that was owned by a family named Mikulecky whose parents had immigrated from Bohemia (the present-day Czech Republic). Each night after dinner, Mom sat at her sewing machine, a cup of black coffee and a Pall Mall Gold cigarette burning close by.

  Mom was a fabulous seamstress. People would bring her old clothes, shirts, dresses, even blankets and tablecloths, and she would tear them apart, stitch them back up on her old machine, add buttons and lace, and create something entirely new. The coat I was wearing that day had been refashioned from one my grandma gave her. She took it apart, repurposed it, and created a gorgeous green winter coat with a black hood made of soft velveteen. It kept my hair dry and felt gentle on my skin.

  I jumped across the mud puddles, trying not to get any mud on my new coat. Jumping was not easy for me; I had braces on my legs, the same kind Forrest Gump wore when he ran down the driveway. (I cried when I watched that movie, remembering how awkward, ugly, and out of place I always felt wearing my braces.) But on this particular day, the happiness from the pretty new coat outweighed the contraptions my legs were bound in, known as “clod-hoppers” to my classmates.

  I climbed on the bus and took my usual seat. My brother, Matt, pushed past me to sit with the kids who lived up the slough from us, and I sat down next to the windows toward the front. At the next stop, a girl named Kathy got on and sat next to me. Her shoulder-length curly blond hair was damp, and short bangs stuck to her forehead. She was a pretty girl with wide-set eyes and a broad smile. The plaid dress she wore was also wet, and she only had a thin sweater on to fend off the damp Oregon chill. My cheerful mood about my own new coat was lost in the moment as she sat next to me, her teeth chattering as she tried to get warm. Every time we stopped to pick up more kids, the clunky door let in the cold wind and she’d shiver again…

  That night over dinner I begged my mom to make a coat for Kathy. I told her I’d give Kathy my new coat if she’d let me and I’d wear my old, tight one. Mom insisted I sit up and eat my dinner and not worry about Kathy’s problems.

  The next day I “slipped” while jumping over a mud puddle and fell in. It wasn’t hard to imagine, given the clumsy braces, and I ended up a muddy, soaking-wet mess. I may have purposely missed the bus… Mom didn’t have a car to drive me to school, so she had to ask our neighbors—whom we called Ma and Pa Fry—if they would take me. I begged her to come with me and told her she’d need to talk to my teacher in order to excuse my tardiness. She relented and came with me to school.

  Lucky for me, the timing was perfect; we arrived just minutes after the bus. I ran to join my class, lining up in front of the school, pulling my mom’s hand to stand by us. Each week we had a new line leader, and then as the flag was raised we said the pledge of allegiance. Rain or shine, we did this every day before entering the building. Kathy was directly in front of me, and like the day before, she stood shivering in the morning mist in a thin cotton blouse and a worn navy-blue cardigan that was much too small.

  That night Mom sat at her machine, and the next day she handed me a brown paper bag. “Give this to Kathy and tell her if it’s okay with her mom, she can have it, that it’s an extra coat since you just got a new one.” I didn’t dare open it or even peek; she had folded the top of the bag and put a single staple in the middle.

  When Kathy climbed on the bus, she smiled and sat down by me. Her curly hair was uncombed, her saddle shoes were scuffed, and she had on the same threadbare navy-blue cardigan. I couldn’t hold back my excitement as I thrust the bag at her. “My mom said if your mom says it’s okay, you can have this coat. It’s an extra.”

  She took the staple out and pulled the coat from the bag. Mom had refashioned a man’s navy dress coat—an actual navy uniform top with the wide collar and white stripes—into a stunning coat for my friend. For a moment I was jealous—with her curls and her new coat, she looked like Shirley Temple! But I was so happy when I saw how proud she was of her new coat that my jealousy faded into sheer joy!

  Looking back, I suspect my mom stayed up all night to cut, line, and sew that coat. She never mentioned it again, except to tell Kathy how nice she looked when she saw her at the next school affair. Kat
hy never knew my mom had created the coat just for her. And I don’t ever remember seeing her mom at any of our community gatherings. Many times in the future, my mother would purse her lips and snap at me, “Mind your own business, Sis,” when I wanted to help someone out, but on this one occasion she came through with flying colors.

  Whether it’s the hesitation to delete an email from a stranger who lives ten thousand miles away, or the tug at your heart to clothe a neighbor with a warm coat, God will produce great results when you follow through with His divine promptings. I almost walked out of that World Vision meeting and never looked back. Instead, I’ve since traveled to the Buduburam refugee camp in Ghana dozens of times over a decade. The organization I founded, Point Hope, has installed water tanks that send clean water to spigots throughout the camp. We have career programs for adults, schools for kids, medical stations, farming programs, and we are providing a real, sustainable future for the people I’ve grown to know and love there.

  And to think, I almost didn’t hit reply to Winifred’s email for help.

  To the same tune, my mother didn’t want to sew a coat for my friend Kathy, because it’s easy to ignore a need when it’s not in front of you. But God lined up the events in order to soften her heart and gave her the materials to make the perfect coat for my friend. Who knows how that kind of warmth may have helped Kathy—perhaps to stay focused at school and feel more confident? Maybe it instilled compassion and the desire to help others in need. We rarely ever see the full spectrum of God’s plan, and how our simple deeds can spiral into much bigger blessings. Which is exactly why we should consider each good deed an act of God’s love and a part of His great plan.

  CHAPTER 3:

  A DETERMINED HEART

  A dirty right foot was balanced atop her left. Skinny legs and arms stuck out from her shorts and T-shirt as a cherubic three-year-old stood at the front gate of the refugee camp, waiting for her mother. Huge dark eyes dominated her dusty brown face framed with short, twisted dreadlocks. She looked past my eyes into my heart, and like most of the hungry children at the refugee camp, she ran straight to me and asked to be picked up.

  She was light as a feather and as hard as a rock when I lifted her sixteen-pound frame into my ample white arms. Her body was emaciated from malnourishment, and yet she had the muscles of an athlete. Later, I discovered it was her job to care for her baby sister and to carry water in a bucket perched on her head for the household to use. Not a simple task, as the only freshwater source was almost a three-mile hike, and let’s not forget, this child was not far removed from being a baby herself.

  I met her on my seventh trip to Ghana. I had the purpose in my heart when I started working in Buduburam, in 2004, to help the community as a whole, not to focus on one or two individuals. I had also decided before I embarked upon starting Point Hope that I was done raising others’ children. I was single at the time, had four kids grown and on their own (sort of), and three to go. Almost all of my children have some special needs, either serious health or developmental issues. So adopting more children was not even in my realm of thinking at the time. Until I met Willette…

  She had a smile that melted my heart and was incredibly intelligent. In Ghana people carry young children on their backs with the aid of a piece of cotton fabric called a lappa. Willette was a bit too old for the lappa and was more content to ride on my hip, her spindly limbs wrapped around my neck and waist. I spent the entirety of that first day with her. She was either attached to me or she was in the arms of my traveling companion, boss, and friend, Kraig. I had sick babies in a lappa on my back and a delightful imp riding on my hip as he and I ferried weak kids back and forth to clinics and doctors that I sponsored in the refugee camp.

  We went to a library that Kraig’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Erica, had collected over thirteen hundred books to fill—the first public library in a refugee camp in the world. We went to the land I had purchased two years before and saw the organic garden we’d had built—the first sustainable organic farm created to feed the malnourished in a refugee camp. Toward the end of the day, we went to our cramped offices to sit and rest, and the entire time accompanied by this little sprite. When it came time to leave the camp that night, and go back to the hotel room with the other volunteers, I could not peel Willette off me. She screamed and flailed her tiny body when they tried to take her from me. I asked those that I knew in the camp to please go find her mother.

  Her birth mother arrived a bit later to fetch her oldest child, and I was shocked at how young she was—barely fifteen when she delivered Willette. I saw that her mom was just a child herself, one who had already given birth twice.

  Deconte’ was a schoolgirl living in Liberia when a brutal civil war broke out. Most of the people who lived in her small village were killed, violently, with machetes or machine guns. The experience left her nearly catatonic, and she has never really returned to normalcy after living through that hell. Deconte’ fled Liberia on foot, along with members of her family, and they made it to the refugee camp in Ghana.

  When I met her, she was barely eighteen, with two babies to raise. She reached over to take Willette off my lap, and the child began to scream, refusing to go back to her mother’s arms. Deconte’ was neither loving nor protective of the live wire in my lap, and after unsuccessfully trying to pull her off, she said, “Keep her” and walked away; it was then I felt the mother Willette had been waiting for could, in fact, be me.

  A few days later, one of the security guards at the camp, Rosalee, a strong, light-skinned Liberian woman, asked me if she could introduce me to a child who was in need of some help. She led me to her mud hut, where I met Mercy, a young girl who looked to be about eight. Weighing about fifty-five pounds, she, like Willette, was both spindly and muscular. Her hair was cut close to her head, and her eyes were huge. Rosalee explained that Mercy had been living on the street for some time when she’d taken her in. This child, however, was very strong willed, used to caring for herself, and not inclined to listen to Rosalee’s instructions. Understandably, Rosalee was afraid she was going to get hurt.

  It took me several years to get the whole story of how Mercy ended up homeless, and suffice to say her young life had been nothing short of horrific. Tough, tenacious, and resourceful are terms that describe Mercy, because she had to be. She reminded me of a feral kitten, so adorable, but skittish and unable to trust or be tamed.

  I spent the week working hard and spending time with both of these little girls who had happened into my life. By the time my plane landed in the US, I knew my resolve to not adopt any more children had melted like the wax used to create the African batik fabric I was wearing. I didn’t dare tell anyone, save Kraig, of my decision. He’d seen me cross that emotional bridge when we were working in the muggy heat of Africa, but I was hesitant to tell others. I didn’t even share with my best friend (and executive producer of my show) Janey, or my sister, DeAnna, my two confidantes. I was afraid my family or friends might attempt to sabotage my decision.

  My younger sons, Zack (bio) and Thomas (adopted), both grew up having pretty intense special needs and required a lot of time and attention. My bio daughter, Shaylah, also has medical issues; she has been medically fragile since birth, with severe asthma and food/environmental allergies. All things considered, adopting any more children, especially those with as much baggage as these two girls had, was pretty crazy. On one level I knew that, but I also knew that God was calling me to be their mother.

  In order to adopt Willette and Mercy, I had to have a home study update. And in order to do that, I had to have a case worker come to my house and interview my family members and friends. My assistant, Joni, started asking questions, and when I confided in her that I had planned on adopting two more children, she just laughed out loud, rolled her eyes and said, “Well, what can I do to help?”

  I hired a lawyer in West Africa and a lawyer in the US and returned to Ghana to appear before a judge in a sweltering courtroom in a town
called Cape Coast. I sat with the two girls, who were busy braiding my sweaty blond hair as we waited for the judge. Thirty minutes later the adoption was completed and papers were signed.

  Then the hardest part of the process began—waiting for the United States to grant an entry visa to my girls. This process takes months, so I placed the girls in a foster care situation in Ghana and returned home. I called them as often as I could and sent packages, presents, and pictures of their family in America. Once the adoption had been finalized in Ghana, I told my family and friends. Most were not only supportive, but also a little angry that I had not told them sooner. Prayers were sent up as I flew back to Ghana to work and to visit my girls.

  Leaving them at the airport, not knowing when or even if their visas would be approved, was one of the hardest things I have ever done as a mother. Listening to them cry and beg me not to leave was excruciating. No amount of consoling them or bribing with trinkets or sweets made it any less painful. It was sheer hell.

  I came home again, prepared my family and my house as best I could, and waited. When the notice finally arrived that their visas had been approved, I packed my bags and took the nineteen-hour trip to Ghana (five to New York, a three-hour layover, then eleven more to Ghana). I landed, collected the girls, and went to stay at a local hotel while we waited for the embassy to give us the visas. One day, two days, three rolled by… I distracted the girls by teaching them how to swim. Neither of them had been in the water before, but despite their lack of experience, they had no fear of it—shallow or deep end. We swam, and they ate copious amounts of food. A buffet at the hotel was an amazing sight and experience for them—something out of a fantasy. Boiled eggs were consumed by the dozen that week. Finally, the visas were ready and we raced to the embassy, got them affixed to their passports, gathered all their documents and adoption papers, and raced to the airport in congested Accra traffic.