Baby Moses

The World Race is another missions group from Adventures in Missions for 21-30 year olds that goes around the world in a year. Right now they are in Swaziland and our groups have been living together and encouraging each other.

A few of them met a woman who is about to die from AIDS but is still trying to help her family. She is too weak to do much but she is trying. When they laid eyes on her tiny baby that she could no longer feed, they knew they had to do something. They asked her if they could take the baby for a few weeks to nurse him back to health and she agreed. The team named him Moses and lavished him with love. I had never seen a baby so small and so loved.

A couple weeks later he got very sick and they had to take him to the hospital. They took turns watching him but needed someone to take the night shift so Elisa and I volunteered. I packed a bag with snacks, my Bible, and a sleeping bag and was off. When we got there, we got a quick briefing on how to give him his medicine and where to get milk and we were on our own. The hospitals here in Swaziland are already rough places. There are so many patients just in one big room and only two nurses. There is no air conditioning and no beds for the moms. Every mom did her best through the night. Some huddled up underneath their child’s bed to get some sleep. Some laid on the concrete outside. Some had to hold their child all night so they got no sleep at all. There was probably only 15 seconds the whole night where there wasn’t a child crying. It was rough, to say the least. I was thankful I was there with a friend so we could take turns taking care of Moses.

About 4 am, Elisa woke me up for my turn again. She warned me that he was getting worse and needed extra care. I went to him, changed his diaper, wrapped him up and said a prayer. Every couple minutes I would stand up and rub his stomach just the way he liked it. Around 5 am, I noticed that his chest wasn’t going up and down any more. I was afraid he wasn’t breathing. I picked him up, rubbed his chest and he took a small gasp of air. I was about to panic so I went to get Elisa. She saw what I did and the other mothers around told us to get the nurse. By the time we got back with the nurse, he had stopped breathing. The nurse simply said, “He is gone. I’m sorry. He has died.” And she took him away.

I didn’t know what to do. I was shocked. I thought he would get some medicine, get better, and the team would continue to love him. There was even a missionary thinking of adoption. But that didn’t happen. I looked at his empty bed and started to cry. I gathered his things together while the mothers said, “Nesi, sorry. I thought he would get better.” I just replied, “Thank you. I thought he would too.”

I thought about not posting this. It is a hard thing to read. But then I decided that it is truth and people need to know the truth. This is the AIDS pandemic. It is not numbers on a page, it is mothers who can no longer feed their babies and babies who die without a chance at live. Moses was one of the most beautiful babies I have ever seen and I have hope that he is in heaven dancing before the throne of God. But I also have sorrow because I know that Moses will not be the last one who dies because of AIDS.

Please consider the action you should take concerning AIDS. Maybe you should volunteer, give, go, pray, visit, lead, speak, or something. Just let it be something. Don’t read this and say, “Oh, that’s sad.” Then go on with your day and life. Take some kind of action because there are those whose lives might just depend on it.