As the phone rang, I began rehearsing the words I would tell her, a sentence I never thought I would say.
"Anne, we found a baby in the garbage dump. Will you take him?”
I loathed night patrol in Kajiado County. Ever since my first murder case with the Kitangela Police Department, my heart and stomach seemed to tense up every time the sun began to set on the Maasai plains. The soft lights of the nearby sprawling city of Nairobi seemed to fade against the darkness prevailing on the streets.
Andrew was usually my partner on the job. A terse character, Andrew would speak only when absolutely necessary.
“Did you hear that, James? You better look over there.” Andrew motioned with his coarse finger towards the trash heap. The warm stench of the garbage permeated the air. Having roamed the rugged roads of Kitangela for years, the smell was as natural to me as the silence kept between us on our rounds.
The dumpster, which was almost completely hidden due to the infrequency of trash collecting in the area, was emitting sound. I stepped over sacks of discarded milk bags, meat bones, and an abandoned three-legged wooden school chair. The whimpering grew louder.
Lying amidst a splattering
of corn, beans, and rotting
cabbage, wrapped in a smudged
blue towel, was a baby boy.
That’s when Andrew told
me to call Anne.
Ten years ago, Anne Mugane attended the first ILI National Conference for Kenya. On the second day, she heard the teaching on the Birth of Vision: Discovering God’s Greater Purposes for Your Life. God spoke to her that day about abandoned children, and within two weeks, four orphans were living in her home.
Anne Mugane is the founder and head mother of the Merciful Redeemer Children’s Home in Kitangela, Kenya—A ministry of Glory Outreach Assembly International (GOA). More than 100 children have experienced God’s merciful and redeeming love because of Anne’s obedience. She named the little boy that came to her from the garbage dump Moses, because he had been miraculously saved.
Tabitha loves the Bible and loves children, but when faced with the daunting reality of nearly three million orphans in her nation, she lacked the vision to make a difference. Little did she know, God had BIG plans to use Tabitha's love for the Word to make history in Kenya.