Skip to main content

Moving a mountain for Musa


I have great news -- we are very close to our goal for Musa! We raised enough in just one day that Ruth can give the hospital a "good faith" payment for the first surgery. As far as I know, Musa's first surgery will take place this weekend. Then he will be in the hospital for observation for 7-10 days before having the second surgery.

We need to come up with just a few hundred dollars more to pay for the hospitalization and surgeries, and I'm hopeful that we may even come up with a small amount to give to the family for any additional living expenses Ruth incurs while in Ghana, or to help them when they return to Freetown, since she has given up her income to take her son to Ghana.

Donations have been coming in since my initial plea -- and I am so moved by the generosity people have shown. I've set up a PayPal account, too, to make it easier to donate; just click the button in the top right-hand corner of my blog.

Growing up in Sierra Leone is hard enough for even the healthiest of children. Again, I feel that if we can all give just a small amount -- and perhaps pass Musa's story on to others who may feel called to give -- we can give Musa an incredible gift.

I feel strongly that just showing this family so much love is changing their lives -- and you never know how far the ripples of love and generosity may reach!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ottomania!

I've been spending a lot of time thinking about ottomans. A ridiculous amount of time, actually, given the number of other things I truly should focus my thoughts on. I find, though, that when the world outside gets scary (and scary is a truly relative term these days) I turn to online shopping for things I don't really need. Actually, it's more like online browsing; I rarely purchase. I spend hours searching for, oh, erasable colored gel pens or standing desks or all-natural curly-hair gel or the perfect black sweater. (Yes, these are things I've fixated on over this winter; I still haven't clicked "buy" nor settled on any of them.) This week, it's ottomans. By the way, my girl  BrenĂ©  Brown would call this behavior numbing . I'm okay with that. Because online browsing is way less detrimental (so far) than chain smoking, which is what I'd really like to do when the world is scary. It's a way to escape, to daydream, to focus on things tha...

Grown-up words and what to do about them

We know our children are little sponges who soak up all our words, actions, mannerisms. They are often parrots, but even more often they are fun house mirrors, amplifying and exaggerating our own idiosyncratic behaviors until we cringe, laugh, or hang our heads in shame. Yesterday while cleaning up his toys, Sweet Boy got frustrated trying to put one of his train pieces together. Instead of crying or raging like he would have a few weeks ago, he threw the toy down and yelled, "Oh, fuck it!" Oh. My. Lord. The air was sucked out of the room. We were suspended in time and space, frozen as our eyes met. I took a split second to consider my options: (1) Freak out and yell at him---scare him into never saying it again; (2) Ask him to repeat what he said, because maybe I heard it wrong and I don't want to overreact; (3) Ask where he heard that word, stuff his mouth full of soap, then call the offending child's parent immediately (a la The Christmas Story ); (4) Ignore it so ...

Why I Occupy

I marched in the Occupy Philly protest last Saturday, and I've been trying to find the words to describe it all week. People who know me look puzzled when I tell them, and I've been trying to explain why this movement has taken root in my heart. Last Saturday, for a few brief hours, I stood up to the anxiety, anger, frustration, and fear that has gripped me for the last few years. For a few brief hours, I marched with people who want better for me and you and this entire country, people who may be ideologically different but stand together because they believe there’s still hope for this democracy, that there’s still a chance that our government will take action for the people and not for the corporations that fund their campaigns. There’s a perception that the Occupy Wall Street movement is simply a mob of young, disenfranchised 20-somethings who have nothing better to do than sleep on city sidewalks to disrupt the lives of those of us with jobs. Revolutions are ...