Kids are not numbers. Statistics choose to represent them that way, but every child is an individual life. An undying soul.
Li Weng Xi is one such child. He came to camp this past summer in China, where we learned that he had Osteogenesis Imperfecta (or Brittle Bone Disease.) Because of a low production of collagen in his body, Li Weng Xi’s bones were very frail. Each step he took was chosen with caution, to protect his fragile body.
When asked how many times he has broken his bones, he told us that he had forgotten. The number was too great.
Camp ended, and Li Weng Xi returned to his orphanage. But he was no longer a number to us; he was a child we knew that needed help. So this past January, Hope, an experienced care-giver of children with special needs and a friend of Bring Me Hope, drove about twelve hours to check on him.
“He showed his legs to me, and they were really curved” Hope reported to us. “We told the orphanage that it seemed Li Weng Xi needed surgery based on our experience with children who have Brittle Bone Disease.”
So that same day, Hope took Li Weng Xi with her to a Foster Home in China who provides special care to children with Brittle Bone Disease. He has been living there since then.
“He is happy to be there,” Hope told us of Li Weng Xi’s experience in the Foster Home. “He likes the food there, and thinks his friends are nice. He’s really excited to have piano class, and he really likes to sing.”
In March, Li Weng Xi had surgery on both of his legs where he proved to be very brave. “I will be taller than before,” he said of his surgery.
Li Weng Xi will be getting his casts off of his legs any day now. Surgery and follow-up physical therapy will help his once bent legs to be straight, finally. He will be strong. And he will know that he is so much more than just a number.
Epilogue:
Because of our care for Li Weng Xi, his orphanage has given us permission to send two other orphans, Obadiah and Peter John, to live in Foster Care!
