{"id":620,"date":"2006-09-01T16:40:24","date_gmt":"2006-09-01T16:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/redletters\/2006\/09\/i-never-even-kn.html"},"modified":"2006-09-01T16:40:24","modified_gmt":"2006-09-01T16:40:24","slug":"i-never-even-kn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/09\/i-never-even-kn.html","title":{"rendered":"I Never Even Knew Her Name"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"South_africa_026\"<\/a>On the South African portion of our trip, I met this beautiful little girl in Durban. She was at the St. Mary’s Hospital<\/a> for victims with AIDS. I used to have a stigma about this disease; who contracted it, why, etc. None of that matters any more after meeting the baby on your right.<\/p>\n

She was only days from death. No fault of her own I can assure you – she contracted HIV from her mother at birth. Now, she is dying from TB which is one of the chief diseases leading to death and caused by HIV. <\/p>\n

I was incredibly broken hearted after seeing this sweet angel. She forced her eyes open just enough to look at me. I prayed for her – prayed for mercy and prayed she wouldn’t be in pain. This is one of the saddest facets of visiting Africa, but it’s reality. We must do something to help this continent Bono describes as "on fire."<\/a> We must be hope and we must look to sustain others who are bringing that hope. <\/p>\n

An incredibly bright part of this trip was to a place called Shepherd’s Keep<\/a>. A Christian baby home dedicated to rescuing HIV babies who had been abandoned. After proper nutrition, lots of love and care, and many prayers – 75% of these babies turn zero-negative. The disease is completely out of their bodies. I never even knew this was possible. An amazing evidence to me of God’s grace and mercy in the lives of children. Maybe, if there were more places like Shepherd’s Keep, she’d still be alive. That’s what Children’s HopeChest is seeking to accomplish.<\/p>\n

Please remember the children in Swaziland and South Africa. Even if a child makes it to 15 in Swaziland, they have a 6% chance of living to 35. This country needs help, it needs Christ, there is no other answer.<\/p>\n

I am happy to say that we have our first sponsorship in Swaziland as of today! Vanguard Church<\/a> of Colorado Springs is sponsoring a care point outside of Mbabane, Swaziland<\/a> of 125 children. Four of the other churches on the trip are currently making decisions about which places they will sponsor. Please email me if you’d like to be involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the South African portion of our trip, I met this beautiful little girl in Durban. She was at the St. Mary’s Hospital for victims with AIDS. I used to have a stigma about this disease; who contracted it, why, etc. None of that matters any more after meeting the baby on your right. She…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":87,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-swaziland"],"yoast_head":"\nI Never Even Knew Her Name - Red Letters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/09\/i-never-even-kn.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Never Even Knew Her Name - Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On the South African portion of our trip, I met this beautiful little girl in Durban. She was at the St. Mary’s Hospital for victims with AIDS. I used to have a stigma about this disease; who contracted it, why, etc. None of that matters any more after meeting the baby on your right. She…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/09\/i-never-even-kn.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Red Letters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2006-09-01T16:40:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/tomdavis.typepad.com\/tom_daviss_blog\/images\/south_africa_026.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tom Davis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"I Never Even Knew Her Name - Red Letters","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/09\/i-never-even-kn.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"I Never Even Knew Her Name - Red Letters","og_description":"On the South African portion of our trip, I met this beautiful little girl in Durban. She was at the St. Mary’s Hospital for victims with AIDS. I used to have a stigma about this disease; who contracted it, why, etc. None of that matters any more after meeting the baby on your right. She…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/09\/i-never-even-kn.html","og_site_name":"Red Letters","article_published_time":"2006-09-01T16:40:24+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/tomdavis.typepad.com\/tom_daviss_blog\/images\/south_africa_026.jpg"}],"author":"Tom Davis","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/09\/i-never-even-kn.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/09\/i-never-even-kn.html","name":"I Never Even Knew Her Name - Red Letters","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/09\/i-never-even-kn.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/09\/i-never-even-kn.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/tomdavis.typepad.com\/tom_daviss_blog\/images\/south_africa_026.jpg","datePublished":"2006-09-01T16:40:24+00:00","dateModified":"2006-09-01T16:40:24+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/09\/i-never-even-kn.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/09\/i-never-even-kn.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/09\/i-never-even-kn.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/tomdavis.typepad.com\/tom_daviss_blog\/images\/south_africa_026.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/tomdavis.typepad.com\/tom_daviss_blog\/images\/south_africa_026.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/2006\/09\/i-never-even-kn.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"I Never Even Knew Her Name"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/","name":"Red Letters","description":"Christian, Christian Inspiration, Christian News, Christian Activism News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/c78d22af30aa2e0860a621fadf855b92","name":"Tom Davis","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b5c\/b5c5842c5b6dd6c51062873d0bb1dfafx96.jpg","caption":"Tom Davis"},"description":"Tom Davis currently serves as CEO of Children's HopeChest (www.hopechest.org), a global orphan care ministry headquartered in Colorado Springs. A tireless advocate for fatherless children, Davis has spent most of his adult life calling U.S. believers to become the hands and feet of Jesus Christ to the 143 million orphans living around the world. Through those connections, thousands of orphans now have the bright and hopeful future--one that is filled with opportunities and the love of the one true Father. Davis speaks hundreds of times each year at churches and conferences, mobilizing the church to action on behalf of the poor. He is the author of four books. His most recent novel, SCARED is a fictionalized account of his first-hand experiencing living and working with orphans in Swaziland, Africa. Davis' blog is the premier resource for the latest developments in Christian orphan ministry. Davis also currently teaches courses as adjunct professor at George Fox University in Newberg, OR. When not traveling the globe, Davis resides in the mountains of Colorado in the small community of Palmer Lake. He and his wife Emily have seven children, including two adopted daughters from Russia.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/author\/tdavis"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/87"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/redletters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}