Happy Life Mission 2022 - Beniah's Story
Posted by Steve Emecz on
In our book 'The Happy Life Story', one of the key stories is Beniah. We first met him ten years ago as a baby and now he's a happy, healthy ten year old living at Happy Life in Juja Farm.
Here's the extract of his story from the book:
"Chiumbo is nearing the end of his ten hour shift collecting garbage in the Kibera slum and he is exhausted. He’s about to throw a clutch of carrier bags onto the wagon when he hears a noise.
He pauses – there is the sound again, coming from one of the plastic bags. He carefully lifts the rubbish from on top of what he can now see is a baby boy whose cries are growing faint.
Wrapped around the tiny infant’s bruised neck is a piece of rope where it looks like he has been strangled, and the placenta is still attached. Chiumbo calls over one of the other collectors. “Mtoto (infant)” says Chiumbo. Carefully they unwind the rope and Chiumbo grabs a cloth from the truck and wraps the baby in it. An hour later and the baby is at the hospital and a call is made to one of the many children’s homes in the area.
This scene is one that is played out many times a day, dozens of times a week and hundreds of times a month."
Beniah 2013 (his name means 'God Builds')
Beniah and Steve - Christmas 2017
Bringing us up to date here's Beniah in 2022.
You can find out more about Happy Life Mission on their website. A share of all books purchased on this website go to the #bookstobooks program supporting education at Happy Life.