Meeting Primrose


 

     This photo means a lot to me. You know the phrase, You’ve come a long way baby? That’s what I think when I see this photo.

     I was just off a 24 hour flight from the US to Zimbabwe. Only a few hours earlier at the airport in Johannesburg, I had sent one last text to my family in the US: Arrive in Zim in a few hours and will be holding Loveness soon. Instead, when I got off the plane in Zimbabwe, I was told Loveness had died. This photo was taken a few hours after that.

     I had been taken to the hospital where Loveness’s body was in the morgue. I still wanted to hold her. But first with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes, I passed through the Children’s Ward at the hospital and met these three children, all abandoned. I am holding Tanya, Cheepo is sleeping in the crib they all shared and staring me down is Primrose.  There were a total of six abandoned children in the hospital on that day. Four infants, including Loveness, had died the previous week.

Kuda, Primrose, Cheepo, Tariro and Brighton (May 2012)
     Nearly four years later, you can see Primrose and Cheepo next to each other in the photo we are using for the Share Your Heart campaign on IndieGoGo (link below) to raise money to send the children to private boarding schools in Zimbabwe.  All these children have been supported through House of Loveness since that first day I met them (Tanya was placed in another orphanage). Primrose will be the first girl to attend boarding school from proceeds to the House of Loveness Share Your Heart campaign.

     This photo reminds me that sometimes your tears can water the seeds of what is to bloom next. Primrose, You’ve come a long way baby.
 
http://www.indiegogo.com/share-your-heart

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Springtime In Zimbabwe

Image
Making friends at Wild Is Life I spent a week in Zimbabwe in August.  I really didn't want go. I'm so grateful I got on the plane anyway. Before I left, I was feeling frustrated about the recent elections in Zim and how the results would affect the citizens.  I was also frustrated because House of Loveness needs a new car (the kids are taking buses and hitching rides to school).  I was frustrated because I desire to move the children to a better home but we don’t have enough money to make it possible.  I was frustrated because we are having problems getting birth certificates for the (abandoned) kids and they need these to go to boarding school.  I also felt pressure to stay in the US for the release of my new film so I could pay my own bills.  The trip ended up being filled with deep connection to the children, the animals, the people, the land and the sunsets.  My frustrations turned to gratitude. My walk with Tatenda My first morning in Zimbabwe, I
Read more

Following My Heart

Image
"It is the heart that gives; the fingers just let go." -Ibo tribe, Nigeria In the next 48 hours, ten women and two of their children are joining me for a week long retreat in Zimbabwe.  I am filled with gratitude for the sacrifice they are making to leave their families during the Thanksgiving holiday, pack bags full of supplies to bring to the children and fly 20 plus hours to Zimbabwe. I have to believe the decision to come to Zimbabwe was made from their heart.  Their head might have given them another answer. On my first trip to Zimbabwe in 2008, I arrived to the news the baby I was to adopt had died.  I spent eight days in Zimbabwe to get her buried and in my head I knew I never wanted to go back.  But my heart led me to return again six weeks later with a wheelchair for Kuda, one of the abandoned children I met whose legs were so atrophied that he scooted on his hands across the dirty hospital floor.  No one ever thought he would walk but I wanted him off that hos
Read more

The Catalyst to Choose Love

Image
Qoya class during the 2013 Service & Safari Retreat Earlier this year, I was invited to give a speech during Catalyst Week in Downtown Las Vegas . The speech was about a catalyst moment in my life . I chose to speak about going to Zimbabwe to adopt a baby in 2008, only to discover she died just before I arrived. Betsy in Zimbabwe, 2008 Losing the baby was a catalyst moment because I had the choice to leave immediately and never return to Zimbabwe (which was my first instinct) or to stay in Zimbabwe and spend eight days grieving a baby in a country I'd never been to, among people I didn't know. I stayed. I spent most of the next eight days taking care of a crew of abandoned children that lived at a local hospital. They reminded me to go beyond the wounds and sadness and Choose Love. December 2013 Some of the children supported by House of Loveness since 2009 By the end of the following year, I had returned to Zimbabwe seven times, and founded Hous
Read more