A moving story from Ethiopia…

The nurses refused to hand Alem her newborn baby boy.

“The nurses showed me just the back side of my baby. I saw their faces were not happy. In fact, they looked shocked by the face of my baby,” she recalled. “I shouted, ‘Show me my baby!’”

The nurses finally complied, and Alem saw the reason for their reaction.

“I was devastated by the look of my child. I didn’t know what to do. I cried for hours and hours. I wanted to die in the hospital,” she said. “I thought that was the end of my family life.”

What would drive Alem to such a sad state? Her child, named Abush, had been born with a severe cleft lip and palate, a disfigurement affecting his upper lip and mouth.

Babies with cleft lip and palate usually have difficulty eating and learning to talk, but Alem’s immediate concern was what would happen when she brought Abush home.

The sight of his newborn son caused Alem’s husband, a man hardened by his years serving as a soldier, to break down and cry. “It is my sin!” he said.  Ashamed, they refused to show Abush to their neighbors.

The couple knew they couldn’t hide their son forever. They needed to find someplace that could help them, if such a place even existed.

Two months later, they saw a program featuring the CURE Ethiopia Children’s Hospital on television. They learned that the hospital treated cleft lip and palate. Excited, the couple brought their baby to the capital city of Addis Ababa.

Over the next few months, the hospital’s plastic surgery team treated Abush and successfully repaired the cleft lip and palate. By the time he was a year old, the change was dramatic.

Probably even more dramatic was the change in Alem. After taking her son home, she sent the hospital this note:

“When I came to you, you received me like a mother welcoming her child. You healed my broken heart and healed my child. I have seen that this hospital is full of the Word of God…I want to [thank] this hospital for the love you have shown to my son and my family.”