We have a little dragon in our blood.......

We had a meeting with our older children today in the garden. We talked about their HIV status and used the little book "There is a little dragon in Brenda's blood.". It tells the story about a small HIV+ girl and the HIV virus is called a little dragon. You have to take your ARV medicines, than the dragon stays asleep and doesn't make you sick. It also talks about the stigma, some children don't want to play with Brenda, because of the little dragon in her blood and it talks about loosing your parents, Brenda's mother died of AIDS.... 

We had a good talk, they participated and were alert, auntie Lydia was there to translate for the children who do not speak so much English. 

After our meeting it was time to eat, they all ate well, for the people who have been with us, I made a picture from our pots, still the same and still nice and healthy!! 

But then we noticed one of the boys very quiet, we asked if something was wrong, nothing, he said. I followed him to his room and found that he was laying on his bed, sobbing... I got Lydia again and we tried to find out what happened, at first he couldn't talk, then he told us that he missed his mother and he felt that the other boys didn't like him. My heart went out to him, we talked to him and the other boys, who are sleeping on the same room, came in. They also felt for him and were really nice to him. We prayed for him and told him that nobody hates him and that he needed to take some rest. I stayed with him till he slept. Later he came to me, I was sitting behind the computer in the office, he wanted to know if he was going home already, I asked him if he wanted to go home, "no" he said, "my brothers and sissters don't want me to stay with them" There is much more going on, Stigma at home, rejection from his brothers and sisters and his parents died already from AIDS.

In our staff meeting this afternoon, we talked about it, and we prayed for all of them. We don't know how much they already have suffered and how often they were rejected. 

We need God to give us wisdom and a heart full of compassion........