Isaiah’s Journey
Ann MacCormac and Ella Fischer
Isaiah, 17 years old, had little schooling and no job skills, but needed to provide for his siblings, one of whom was mentally handicapped due to chronic malnutrition. When my daughter and I travelled to Kenya in 2012 to meet our Soapstone ZOE working group, Isaiah was the most vulnerable of the children. We hiked off the dirt road to meet him and his family, and as we learned more about his situation and how he had been ostrasized from the community, my heart broke. When we formed a circle and I held his trembling boney hand to pray with him, tears ran down my cheeks. At 5’10” he weighed no more than 90 pounds and stood with his eyes cast down, not able to speak with the social worker. In that moment, I did not recognize the hope; the potential for change and transformation that the ZOE group held for him. I had no idea how God would work in his life once he was connected with other children and mentors.
At the end of our trip, the working group came together for a meeting, and we had a glimpse of what lay in store for this young man. We saw some of the other boys in the group include Isaiah and learned that they were planning to teach him to farm. A year later, when another person from Soapstone visited, she almost did not recognize Isaiah. He was no longer the starving, uncertain boy he had been before. He had fully integrated into the working group, and was laughing and speaking.