Francis is a young four year old boy, born into a family of 6 siblings … living in Pier 4, one of the roughest and most inhumane areas that we work in. Drugs, gangs, prostitution and every form of darkness is in this place … not even the police like to go there … but this is where Francis was born … and this is where we found him. He was diagnosed with severe malnutrition compounded by T.B … this had manifested itself in his intestines … resulting in him having surgery to divert his waste from being excreted from his bowel and anus … now it was being expelled through his stomach … this meant that he needed to be kept clean … well fed… medicated … and of course the bag and surrounding area of the wound hygienic …f too!

When Francis was brought to us to see, by a concerned relative, it was a shocking sight … he was literally screaming in agony as the bandage that had been left on for days was removed … the stench was overpowering and the site, very distressing … he was suffering and we needed to do something immediately. We cleaned the area … applied a clean sterile covering and immediately set off to see his doctors at the Cebu City Medical Centre ..

one of the many hospitals that we work in on a regular basis and one that has received countless donations through our work there … … we were entertained immediately but the doctors were quite pessimistic about Francis’s chances of recovery and likelihood of recovering from his malnutrition, they voiced their gravest concerns as to the mothers ability to care for Francis. We made a commitment that we would do everything within our power to help Francis but we needed them to assist us in providing clear and precise instructions for his recovery.
Its true that Francis’s mother is a very hard woman who found the regular care for him both time consuming and costly … we set up a schedule to visit the area everyday and change the bag, clean the surrounding area, apply the special ointment and ensure that Francis was fed and medicated. Despite our efforts Francis’s mother was very uncooperative … often refusing to bring Francis three houses down from hers to the center … leaving it to concerned neighbours and/or relatives who begged for us to continue to care for Francis and to ignore Mums antics. The treatment was quite costly and in the beginning time consuming.

We of course continued to care for Francis and within a few days we saw a vast improvement… thanks be to God at least he wasn’t screaming and having to be pinned down to treat him … we were gaining trust and respect from him.
After a considerable amount of time we began to wean both Francis and Mother off our intense care … leaving the bulk of the care to Mum as this was what she was wanting. Over the Christmas break of 2 weeks Francis’s condition worsened dramatically almost returning to the unkept site of the wound we had first found … despite the fact that we had provided all the necessary medical supplies and instructions his wound had been allowed to get out of control … so again Jogie and I set up a daily vigil of attending to his wound, medication and food. A little disheartened but ever more determined to see this young boy recover … we prayed as we went, we prayed as we dressed and cared for him and we believed that he was going to recover!

Again Francis recovered quickly and he was definitely gaining strength. Towards the end of January his intestine began coming out of his wound area … it was very disturbing his Mum rang us and we advised her to have him seen by the emergency room immediately … they were very busy and did not want to be bothered the nurse instructed her to return home and to simply push the intestine back in his stomach by hand!!! Fortunately Mum had the initiative to bring him straight to the Rescue House because she didn’t want to push it back in … we rang our resident doctor who emphatically advised us not to touch it as we could cause fatal damage! Phew!!! After this event we accompanied them to Cebu City Medical Centre where we had him reassessed for corrective surgery so they could close the area on his stomach and he would again be able to pass his waste through the appropriate ways … however when we took him to the hospital we were given the run around … people from Pier 4 are considered and often treated worse than second class citizens and this is so often the reason that parents who are trying to help and care for the children, simply give up … anyway we were able to apply some friendly pressure and sure enough Francis was treated, operated on, and has had a successful surgery Thank the Lord … he has recovered in a record time and is doing very well … he was on the brink of death .. suffering from severe malnutrition not to mention the pain and agony of the open intestine … he was being consumed with TB and now is in recovery from it … and just one more footnote to the story … his total bill from the hospital for his surgery was to be more than $500.00 but through our connections and previous work and donations to the facility we were able to have the amount reduced to $50.00 God is sooooo good … we were given a general donation just before Christmas and this was enough to cover the medications for the surgery, the blood transfusions and his total bill …

what a blessing and a wonderful answer to our prayers …
We are truly thanking God for His awesome hand of love that has again reached into the depths of despair and darkness and shone that light so bright that no demon in hell or on earth could stand!!!