A Boy Named Innocent

By Lydia Schaeffer –
Director of Treasures of Africa Children’s Home

Two years ago, Ramadhani came to live at the Treasures of Africa Children’s Home. Both of his parents had died and he had been forced to live in the streets of Moshi begging and stealing to obtain food. One of our workers at the orphanage, whose husband is a pastor, had come into contact with Ramadhani and asked if we would consider taking him into the Home along with his eight year old sister Doreen. We brought Ramadhani and Doreen to the orphanage in March of 2007.

Ramadhani was 12 years old and had never attended school. Although he could not read a single word, we enrolled him in second grade because he was too big and too old to be placed in first grade. Because he had been living in the streets, he had developed a tough personality. At TOA, Rama was easily angered and often pushed the younger children around and intimidated them. His roughness with the other kids and our concern for their safety made us wonder if we should allow him to continue living with us.

We prayed again and again for Ramadhani and asked the Lord for His wisdom and guidance. One day when the children were home from school on a holiday break, they were upstairs in our tutoring center working on homework. Ramadhani did not want to work and threatened to hit one of our teachers who was trying to help him.

Elisonguo, our assistant director, took Ramadhani downstairs to discipline him. He spent a lot of time talking with Rama and discussing the direction his life was going with his negative attitude and defiance towards authority.

Through this time of discipline with Elisonguo, Ramadhani made a dramatic turn-around and we began to see him soften. Over a period of weeks the changes in Rama were becoming more and more evident to the staff. He was no longer mean to the other children and he was listening to and obeying the adults.

Then Rama achieved an important victory. This young man who had never been to school, learned to read! He became his teacher’s favorite pupil because of his polite and obedient attitude. As the school year passed, his teachers were continually amazed at his progress academically and behaviorally. They said he was an example for all the other children to follow.

This past October, Ramadhani asked to be baptized in water as a declaration of his faith in the Lord Jesus. On that special day, he changed his name to Innocent. He chose that name himself, explaining that it represented to him what the Lord had done in his heart.

In Tanzania the new school year begins in January. Just this past week, the children received progress reports from their teachers from their first quarter of school. Innocent’s teachers have reported to us that his behavior is at the top of his class and they are very pleased with him. But they were also pleased to report to us that academically, Innocent is currently ranked number 5 out of a class of 50 students. That is a miracle for a child who had never before attended school!

We are thrilled with the astounding changes that have taken place in Innocent’s life over the past two years. God is doing amazing things in this young man’s life and it is a blessing to see so many wonderful things that have taken place in such a short amount of time.