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A Promise for a Princess
By Dr. Wess Stafford
May 30, 2008
Last November as I was to deliver the address at Compassion's first Leadership Development Program (LDP) graduation in Ethiopia, I remembered a tearful promise uttered from the depths of my broken heart.
We were honoring 16 outstanding university graduates who were among the first Compassion-sponsored children there in 1993. As I watched these young adults speak with poise and confidence about their accomplishments and dreams, it was obvious that even though they had been born in poverty, poverty had not been born in them.
For the graduation program, two Ethiopian leaders and I took part in a foot-washing ceremony as a charge to the graduates to follow Christ's example of servant leadership. It was expected that I would wash the feet of a male graduate. But as I walked onto the platform, I looked into the soft, dark eyes of a young woman graduate named Abaynesh and felt strongly compelled to kneel in front of her instead.
Her eyes, filled with a calm dignity, were mysteriously familiar. Suddenly a flood of memories transported me back to 1985, the year Abaynesh was born. Ethiopia was suffering from a devastating famine.
Communism ruled and the Ethiopian Church was enduring great persecution. Compassion's Child Sponsorship Program was not operating there at that time, but we did provide relief funds. Our president Wally Erickson sent me, his assistant, to Ethiopia to make sure the money was allocated as intended "in Jesus' name."
I flew to a refugee camp in the country's Gamo-Gofa region. As I stepped off the small plane into this crowded tent city in the wilderness, I found myself face to face with the sadly familiar TV images of the emaciated masses. But now I met them as the brave individuals they were, hovering on the brink of survival with as much dignity as possible.
Having grown up in Africa myself as the son of missionaries, I had lost many boyhood friends to poverty's cruelties and I thought I knew poverty. But I had never experienced anything like this. My guide took me to a tent reserved for severely malnourished infants.
Dozens of young mothers were sitting on the ground with babies in their laps who were too weak to cry. The mothers were skin and bones and their breasts had no milk for their little ones.
But they were dipping their fingers into bowls of infant formula provided by the relief efforts and were patiently trying to force it, drop by drop, into the slack mouths of their starving children.
I sat down in the dirt and joined a small circle. One frail mother, still a girl herself, handed me her baby girl. She must have thought I was a doctor or at least might somehow produce a miracle. Her daughter was slipping away and this was her last desperate grasp at hope.
I took the child, limp as a doll, and held her. I too dipped my finger into the formula and placed a drop on her lips. Through a blur of tears I begged her, "Please swallow, sweetheart. Please live." I watched in dismay as the nourishment — too little, too late — dribbled away.
Then her half-closed eyelids opened wide, clear and serene, and our eyes met. Her tiny, protruding ribs slowly rose, then fell, in a silent sigh. Then nothing more.
Her head rolled slowly to the side … and she was gone. This precious little princess died in my arms. I will never forget that moment as long as I live. It galvanized God's calling on my life.
I whispered to her, "I'm so sorry I couldn't save you." This was wrong! Through tears and clenched teeth I added, "I promise you, one day Compassion will come here." Deep sorrow enveloped that young mother as I gently handed back her lifeless baby.
As she rocked her daughter's body, we cried together. When I left and the tent-flap door fell behind me, I could still hear her anguished weeping and it pierced my heart.
Eight years later, during my first year as Compassion's president, Ethiopia's Communist government collapsed. After 17 long years the persecution ended and the Church of Ethiopia sent the message: "Come quickly now. We are free. Our children need Compassion."
It was my first decision as president and an easy one to make. After all, I had already made it years ago in my promise to a dying princess.
So on this special graduation day, as I knelt with towel and basin before another Ethiopian princess — one who had grown and thrived because of her caring Compassion sponsor — I remembered where I had seen those noble eyes before.
Abaynesh could have been that sweet infant girl who had died in my arms 23 years ago; that little baby could have grown up to be like Abaynesh, a Compassion LDP graduate with a bright future. And while I had the profound privilege of washing Abaynesh's feet that day, in my heart I was also washing the feet of that tragically lost baby girl, and I could have filled the basin with my tears.
Today Ethiopia is beginning to prosper and the Church is strong. I am so grateful to God for enabling us to keep that promise made long ago and to our Compassion sponsors who are enabling more than 65,000 Ethiopian children to be rescued and released from poverty in Jesus' name.
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