To Honor Our Son: Love and Serve Others Who Need Clean Water

A little over a month ago, we accepted a referral for a little 3 year old boy.  We had one phone call with the director of the Congo program, one picture of a little boy, and a handful of documents that summed up his life’s history to that point.  Born:  June 2010.  Mother died:  September 2012.  Father relinquished:  February 2013.  We started praying for Mukanga Djembe daily, asking that God would prepare our family to love Mukanga well, with a fierce, undying love.  We prayed for God to keep Mukanga safe, and most importantly, to reveal himself to Mukanga and save him.  Our two daughters prayed for Mukanga daily as well, asking many of the same things we were.  They were so excited to finally have an actual person for whom to prepare.  It had become real to them, and they were excitedly telling everyone we knew, “God has given us a little brother!”.  We were overjoyed.

Then, one week ago, we received a phone call telling us that Mukanga had died from dysentery, along with 30 other children at the orphanage.  We were shocked and grieved.  There are no words to express how we felt at that moment.  Our son dying from dysentery?  How can this be true?  This is a preventable disease, and even more than that, a treatable  disease!  People can’t possibly die from this...but they did.  31 of them, and many, many more were affected in the town

We are reeling from Mukanga’s death.  It hits at odd moments, like when we turn on the faucet to make coffee in the morning and watch an unlimited stream of clean, purified water pouring out of our tap.  Or when I see a friend’s son whose birthday is one day after Mukanga’s.  Or sometimes for no reason at all, the grief washes over me.  I am tempted to call his death “senseless”, but that undermines what I believe about God.  If I believe he is the Sovereign Lord, then I believe he is in control of all things, even difficult, sad things.  I don’t know or understand the hows or whys of what happened at this orphanage, but I do know that God is loving, kind, merciful, righteous, and just.  His ways are not my ways, and he has a far greater purpose in the world than what I can comprehend.

The loss of Mukanga has opened our eyes, however to the tragedy of unclean water.  Before this, we had no idea how many children died a year from such a basic thing.  Now, we are well-armed with figures like 720,000 children dying a year from dysentery.  Now those statistics have meaning, because our son is one of them.  Now, we empathize and mourn with the other parents whose children die every year from diseases like this.  It is a tragedy.

It has caused us to examine our lives and priorities.  We like to think we are frugal.  We have long-term goals which cause us to be very careful with our money.  While we aren’t extravagant in buying a bigger home or a newer vehicle, are there things we are spending extravagantly on for our income?  Do I really need a new winter coat, when I have one that fits?  Do we need DirecTV?  Do I really need a new case for my phone?  These are the kinds of questions we are starting to ask ourselves, because now we have been reminded about something that is far more important than our comfort.
Investing in water projects in remote places in the world gives comfort, but it also gives life!  Our small, superficial sacrifices can allow one less family to grieve the death of a child, by financially providing for clean water.

May God continue to work in our hearts that we may live sacrificially and joyfully to make His good name known and to help others in their time of need.  May He keep our hearts passionate and focused on doing what we can to help others.  May we honor Mukanga’s short life by striving to serve and love others in honor of his memory.  We have been richly blessed; may we now use that to be a blessing to others.  May God be glorified, and may His praise go forth to the ends of the earth.

- Meredith Campbell, Adoptive Mother