Between 2 and 3 years ago, many miles from Chipanda Village where the TWAM Centre is located, lived a pregnant woman. We do not know her age, circumstances or whether she was married. All we really know is that people in her village said she was ‘insane’ and told the woman emphatically that her baby would be ‘insane’ also. The baby was born and the relatives and villagers said she could not keep the baby because the baby, a girl, would be ‘crazy in the head’. The woman asked her relatives to take the infant and they refused. Feeling that she had no choice, the new mother took her baby into the bush and left her on the dry, red dirt.
Some time later, we can’t be sure how many days, a middle-aged woman from Chipanda happened to be walking in the bush many miles from her village. She saw something odd under a shrub. As she cautiously approached, she discovered a tiny baby girl near death. She took the child to the nearest village and told the chief her story. He told her the child was hers because she had found her.
The woman, a grandmother, was not searching for a child that day and yet the compassion in her heart would not let her look the other way when she made that life changing discovery. The woman named the girl Yamakani and brought her back to her hut in Chipanda Village. Yamakani is new at Happy Hearts. She is lively, clever and beautiful!! Praise God this precious child was rescued!!
