Dorca and Agosto

This is Agosto and his auntie Dorca at their home.  His sister Dorca was away with their cousin having corn ground this day.  They were at the orphanage because Agosto was being neglected by this same family who now are taking good care of both him and Dorca.  I've seen the pictures and heard the stories of when he first came to the orphanage.  He was severely malnourished with fine, red, brittle hair.  Big unhealthy round tummy.  Severe thrush throughout his mouth and gut.  He was a sick little boy.  Dorca came because her little brother was not doing well without him.  He would cry out for her and only her for the two weeks he was there without her. 

At the orphanage Agosto was quiet, contemplative, slow to speak, slow to smile.  He appeared happy and  content but something was missing.  Since going home he has blossomed into a confident young man with an easy gentle smile. 

Dorca has had a harder time going home.  She had an easy life at the orphanage compared to life for any 8 y/o girl in the bush.  She has had to learn to fetch water, cook, care for younger cousins.  It is not just playing and going to school any more.  She does say that she would rather be there than at the orphanage. 

For girls especially, orphanages don't help equip them for a hopeful future.  The orphanage is a very western setting compared to the average and even higher than average lifestyle in Mozambique. In the orphanage, there is no need to walk miles to collect water. There is no concern for where the next meal will come from,  no understanding for why the ability to grow a garden is a necessity for life.  The most common professions for girls here are teaching, nursing (which is still predominantly male), being a wife, and prostitution.  If they do not have the aptitude to be a teacher or nurse, they do not come out of the orphanage with very desirable skills to be chosen as a wife by a Mozambican man.  So that basically leaves one option.    

Compared to the other children that are at home, Dorca and Agosto have it the hardest.  Their family is the poorest.  The relatives left are the most distantly related: a grandmother and an aunt.  They attend the poorest, most over crowded school.  But I know that there is no way the family would have welcomed them back unless it was the Lord's will for them.  He will protect them and provide for them.  I still get to be involved in their lives with visits and am able to help when they need.  They have recently had a new roof put on their house and are in need of a new house all together.  Once the rainy season ends, that process will begin.  It is the hunger season now and so they occasionally need help with food. 

It is still hard sometimes to understand that this is what is best for them, what the Lord knows is best for them.  My eyes still look through western glasses that see poverty and pain not the Lord's protection, provision...plan.  He loves them more than I am capable of and His plans are greater than I can even desire for them.