The Day I Gave Up
There were times when we had no money, no food for the children, so we would bring a bag of mealie meal (the staple diet) from home, because the children had to eat.
On this day, a Monday, Minerva and I went to the school, started work, when a teacher came in to say ‘This child is sick. She is shivering.’ We took her to the sick bay and observed her, but couldn’t work out what was wrong. Then Minerva suggested that maybe she was hungry. We didn’t have any money, even to buy a small packet of sugar. We sent one of the boys to the grocer, to ask if we might have a scone and a packet of sugar, to pay later. He let us have those, so we made a glucose drink and gave it to the child with the scone, hoping to stabilise her before taking her to the hospital. We were shaking, the teachers were shaking, none of us knew what to do!
After a few minutes, we asked her how she was feeling, and she said she felt much better. After finishing a hot, sweet drink, she slept for 2 hours, and when she woke up she was better.
That was the day when I gave up.
I went into my office. I didn’t kneel down, I lay prostrate on the floor and prayed to God: “This is too hard for me! If you are giving me such a hard task without resources, then I’m giving up! What if this child had died? What would I have done? I may have been jailed for hurting her!”
After I prayed, a knock came at the door. It was a man from the Ministry of Youth. They had never been to our school before, never given any help. He came in and said, “What’s happening here?” I said “Everything is OK!” (The children had finished school, but hadn’t gone home. They liked to stay around at school because it felt safer than home.)
The Ministry of Youth man said “We were just passing, and thought we would stop by because we’ve never given you anything.” He was on his way with food to another school. The children came to help carry in some goodies from his van, very happy as they hadn’t eaten that day. Then I sat down and told him what had happened that day. He said “Is that so? I didn’t know your situation!” And immediately he went back to the van and off-loaded everything! All the children ate that day.
Miracles still happen!
Written By: Joyce Chimbila
