October 21, 2005
The following was written by Jon Erickson, a medical worker at Hope Clinic, Guinea.
A few months ago, Moses, a worker here at Hope Clinic in Guinea, told me about a young girl in town with a chain around her leg. I did not believe it was possible. Yet we went to see her, and yes, she was tied to a log. Si (sounds like “sigh”), a young girl perhaps 14 years old, lived on the floor of a mud-brick room and had one dirty rag that barely covered her. Si had epileptic seizures, so her mother kept her chained.
In Si’s presence Moses told her mother to bring her daughter to the clinic, where the seizures were treatable. They did not come. Moses went to the family again and offered to pay for the treatment. They still did not come.
One day the chain rusted away, and Si ran to Moses’s house before her mother discovered she was missing. Saskia, the doctor at Hope Clinic, began treating Si and loving her. She has become Si’s sister, savior, and Santa Claus all in one. Si’s seizures have stopped, she has dresses to wear, and she sleeps on a bed in her mother’s home. She gets hugs and laughs from her “big sister.”
Si loves to talk and is very determined. Last week she pestered Moses into putting her in first grade. So now she is in school.
Thanks Moses, thanks sister Saskia, thanks for the school and clinic that were gifts from the worldwide Christian community. Si has seen Jesus through you all.