One Heart at a Time

by Delilah

  Zach was excited about rehearsals but he was a different kid when he was performing. There was a joy about him that came on as soon as he was on stage. Madrigal Feaste was clearly his thing. Costumes, stories, serving, acting… did I mention costumes? He loved it.

  I saw Zach the week before school started. He was showing someone around the school. I didn’t see him at first but he yelled down the hall at me… “Hey, Mr. Allen! How’s it going?” I turned around and he proceeds to introduce me as the “best teacher at SK.” Man, I didn’t think much about it at that point. It was just Zach’s encouraging spirit trying to lift ME up. What a gem.

  I knew very little about Zach’s struggles. I wish I had known more. I wish I could have helped and been more available to him. I regret not taking more time to know his struggles.

  I learned from Zach. I learned to be more encouraging. I learned to not take life for granted. I learned to not take my students for granted. I want to get to know my students more because of Zach. I value those kids that aren’t the “traditional” kids. They can have an outlet in choir, as well as find a home in a school that is so big that kids can feel lost. I’m more focused on reaching those kids now.

  I cannot imagine your pain, but I also see your faith on display for the world to see. There is no way to ease the pain but knowing that Zach is in the arms of Jesus is a start. God works ALL THINGS together for good for those that love Him. Who knows what good is coming from this, but God’s promises are true.

  Blessings,

  Mike Allen.

  Zachariah Miguel Rene-Ortega was a challenging, wild, passionate, talented, charming, manipulative, defiant boy. Filled with compassion for the outcast and a wicked sense of humor, he was my most challenging child in many ways, but also the apple of my eye.

  While the pain is even worse than the pain I had when he came into this world, it is oddly the same. Only instead of my body tearing and bleeding, it is my heart.

  I wrote this poem the day after I landed and went to the funeral home to see my once vibrant son:

  In violence he was born, a rush of bloody fluids that exploded into the room only a minute after I arrived… and in violence he departs. I prayed with all my being at his arrival, grey and small and lifeless as he entered. The only sign of life were his big open eyes, looking beyond me to something I could not see.

  And as I screamed for the doctors to revive him on the birthing table, they got oxygen to his tiny frame and in time the grey skin was replaced by pink, and the breaths came on his own. This time I was not there to scream for the doctors to revive him, the oxygen was long gone from his lungs by the time his wiry frame was freed from the rope.

  I know not how to think or feel, so I cling to God in my darkest hour and find peace in knowing I loved my son fiercely. I am convinced only the Lord in Heaven loved him more. I pray that God forgave him his youthful foolishness as easily as I did and overlooked his character flaws. He will not be in my arms again until my name is called, but I pray the Lord is holding him and telling him that he is loved in such a way that I could not.

  I loved you with every fiber of my being Zachariah, and I will love you for all eternity son. Rest in the arms of our Lord and I pray you have found the peace in death that you could not find in life.

  I won’t hold my last born biological baby again until eternity. I won’t stroke his long, beautiful hair, or feel his breath against my skin. I won’t hear his voice—except for the few recordings I have—until I see Jesus face to face. I hope the Lord won’t mind if I rush to hold both Zack and his older brother Sammy in my arms before getting the tour of paradise.

  When Zachariah left us, I know that his older brother, Sammy, was waiting at heaven’s gate with a wide smile.

  Sammy Young D’zolali Rene was a part of our family for just two years before God called him home on March 11, 2013. I had adopted Sammy from an orphanage in Ghana, West Africa, and he instantly became a part of our extended family and a huge part of our hearts.

  Sammy’s love and happiness were infectious; his broad smile would light up the room. All who met him were touched by his silly, fun personality and his unconditional love. Sammy was born in Ghana; we know not when, we know not where, we know not who bore him. When he was a toddler, he was found wandering the streets of a village, lonely, hungry, and cold. Schoolchildren took him in and fed him scraps from their lunches and allowed him to sleep in the schoolroom at night. They named him D’zolali, meaning “spirits fly”…

  After a time, the school’s headmistress tried to locate family members, and no one claimed him, so Sammy was taken to Osu Children’s Home, an orphanage in the capital city of Accra, and there he stayed. An auntie was eventually located and told the director of the orphanage that Sammy would scream at night and writhe on the floor. They believed he was possessed by demons, and they tried to cast the evil spirits out. Then they would beat him. When that didn’t stop his screaming, they put him out in the street to die. Little did they know he was writhing in pain because of sickle cell anemia, a genetic blood disorder that afflicts many in West Africa.

  Sammy spent most of his life in Osu without ever having a single visitor or a relative come to see him. He never received a Christmas present, never had a birthday celebration. He never had his own room; he never learned how to read or write. He was often cold and hungry; there was never enough food for the kids at the home. He never had new soccer shoes or his own soccer ball, but he did have the talent to draw, so he would sit for hours and draw pictures for the other children living in the home. When visitors would come to see the other kids, Sammy would hurriedly draw a picture to bless them.

  When he had his sickle cell attacks, he would be told by the aunties running the home to be quiet and to go lie down, because he was disturbing the other children. Eventually, a sweet lady named Auntie Annie came to the home and took an interest in Sammy. She would carry him to the street, get him on a crowded bus and take him to the hospital, where he would be given something to ease his excruciating pain.

  In 2010, while working in Ghana, I went to Osu and met Sammy. He had been very sick the day I was there and stayed at the orphanage instead of going to school. He was sitting at a small table in the sun, drawing pictures for the other children in the home who didn’t attend school. When I met him, he gave me the picture he was drawing and put his name on it. I took his small, stubby pencil and drew a picture of him, and handed it to him as a gift. As the Lord would have it, there was another lady at the orphanage that day, Laurie Thibert, who lives in the Puget Sound area. Laurie was adopting a boy from the orphanage, Osei, and she knew Sammy well. She offered to help me to keep in touch with Sammy by sharing the cell phone she had left at the orphanage for her son, Osei. I knew in my heart that Sammy was special, talented, and lonely, and that I loved him—I just didn’t have a clue how special he really was at that time or how much more I would grow to love him.

  So it became a pattern. Every Sunday morning Laurie would call me and tell me that she had just spoken to Osei, and Sammy was waiting to talk to me. After a few weeks of wrestling with the Lord and insisting that I could not handle adopting any more children, God had given me peace and the strength and courage I needed. A lawyer was found, and the insane paper trail began. It took a full year to complete the adoption and obtain Sammy’s visa to come to the US.

  During that time I took him out of Osu and put him in a foster home situation at Buduburam, the refugee camp my NGO, Point Hope, works in. In no time at all, Sammy had all the employees of Point Hope and probably half the residents of the camp wrapped around his little finger. His charm and warmth touched all he met. He had his first real family in Buduburam. He lived with a young man named TC and then moved in with Kwasie and Aunt Essie…he was so loved and cherished, and when I came to take him home to America, they did not want to let him go.

  Once he was home in America, he could not get enough love and affection. He was like a little puppy, wanting to be held and loved on const
antly. He would run his fingers through my hair, sit on my lap, drape his gangly arms around me every chance he got. After a few months, that began to change, and he rapidly matured into a sweet young man, far too mature to be held by this mama bear. He worked hard at everything he put his hand to. He loved having his own room, and he kept it spotless and neat. He loved having several changes of clothes, and his fashion sense was impeccable. His shoes looked as if he had never worn them, because he would clean them every day. He made his bed each morning and put his things away neatly. He got frustrated when his siblings would not help out around the house, and he was constantly telling me to go sit down, he would do whatever task I was working on.

  Sammy loved to eat, to laugh, to tease, to draw and paint, and to dance. He had a sense of rhythm like Michael Jackson and moved like he had taken years of dance lessons. He was always the life of the party, and we had many parties in the short time he was a part of our lives. Before each party he would say he wasn’t going to attend, that it would be boring, and then he would end up being the center of attention each time!

  On the first night he was fully my son, Sammy told me through his tears that he never dreamed God would answer his prayers. He said, “Mama, I always thought I would die alone in the orphanage. That I would never know what it was like to have someone love me.” And after several racking sobs, he continued, “And no one would know that I had ever lived.”

  He died in our arms, he died surrounded by people he loved, and none of us will ever forget that he lived. That he lived life filled with God’s grace and mercy. That he lived life filled with hope for the future. That he lived a life that was worthy of God’s calling, and that he lives on in our hearts every day going forward.

  My son Sammy waited a long time to have a family; I, on the other hand, waited merely minutes for my salamander friend to come back to life. Both were miracles of different magnitudes, yet both left deep impressions upon the hearts of their witnesses.

  I knew the salamander and the owl were signs from God that things really could live again, and it fueled my codependent adolescent spirit to pray harder, to try harder, to bring life to souls that appeared to be long gone. And well into adulthood, I’ve seen Him bring people back to life who didn’t necessarily lack a heartbeat, but did lack the heart to go on. I have prayed into the lives of friends and family who’ve lost themselves somewhere along the way, and many times over I’ve seen a revival of spirit, purpose, and love where hopelessness had once settled in.

  Sammy prayed this type of restoration into his own story, that he would be loved, that he would not die alone, and that his very existence would be recognized by anyone—and in fact his story has touched thousands.

  Zack prayed this type of restoration into the many outcasts, loners, and all those kids like himself, different from their peers, whom he instinctively knew were in need of his generous heart. Just as he had prayed it into the kids from the African Children’s Choir, and in doing so, he prayed them into our lives.

  In the days and weeks after I lost my boys, I was one of those who did not know if I had the heart to go on. When Zack took his own life, I had to step away from my radio program for three weeks before I could find the strength and courage to put my voice back on the air. The outpouring of love, support, and prayer from my listeners—the hundreds of thousands of you who in that moment stopped to considered where my heart was—restored me.

  Zack and Sammy’s purposes far surpassed the end of their lives here on Earth. Their stories will continue to be told in hopes that people like you who read this book will understand that God has a vision for your life, a purpose to pray for, and miracles in store for you along the way.

  Yes, miracles of very different magnitudes… but wouldn’t you know… the tiny salamander who lived before my five-year-old eyes planted a seed of faith in things unseen, which grew and rooted into a deep belief that my sons, Zack and Sammy, who died, still live.

  CHAPTER 2:

  A HEART BECKONED

  Sitting in my cramped studio built beneath a stairwell in an old brick building that stood next to the monorail tracks in Seattle, Washington, I was two hours into my nightly five-hour broadcast, scrolling through my inbox and answering my request lines.

  Delete, delete, delete… stop and read, delete, answer, delete, read live on the air, went the cadence of my computer use in between “Hi, you’ve reached the Delilah show. Who’s with me on the phone lines?” On this particular December night, I started to hit delete on one of a dozen scam letters I had gotten. They usually begin, “Dear sir or madam, you are receiving this because I was given your name by a colleague…” And usually end with, “If you kindly give me your name, Social Security number and routing address I will gladly deposit ten million dollars into your account. You must not tell anyone about our arrangement…”

  But before my right hand instinctively hit delete, I paused and kept reading.

  Dear Madam,

  My name is Winifred Ticley.

  I understand you adopt black children. I am wondering if you would consider adopting my three children. They are starving. We have no food or fresh water. We living in a refugee camp called Buduburam in Ghana, West Africa. If you cannot, may God bless you anyway.

  Sincerely, Winifred Ticley

  I stopped. Read it again. Shook my head at how absurd this communication was, and then instead of delete, I hit reply.

  “Who are you and how did you know I have adopted children? How did you get my email address?”

  At that point I was a single mom with a family of seven, three biological children and four adopted, ranging in age from twenty down to two.

  Several hours later, before leaving my studios for the night, I got a reply. “I am Winifred Ticley. A mother of three. There is an Internet café near to the refugee camp where we live. I was in a Christian chat room begging for support for my children and someone said that a white lady named Delilah is famous and has adopted black children. Would you adopt mine?”

  Back and forth we wrote over the next few days—someone claiming to be a Liberian refugee named Winifred Ticley, and me. I googled Buduburam and found a few mentions of it on the Internet; it was indeed a refugee camp in Ghana. I googled information about the Liberian population living there and read about the horrific civil wars that had ravaged this tiny West African nation for over two decades, leaving almost a million dead and another half million displaced in refugee camps and neighboring countries. I read about the videotaped executions, massacres, tortures, blood diamonds, rice taxes, and crowded, festering refugee camps. I read about cholera, HIV, starvation, malaria, and the UNHCR. The more I read, the more I was convinced that this was some sort of bizarre hoax, but why? And why me?

  By the third day, after a dozen or so email exchanges, I was going nuts. The part of me that always rushes to rescue or help was bridled by the absurdity of the situation and the enormity of the requests—adopt my starving children? But what if they really were starving? Winifred suggested I wire her money, adding to my suspicion that this was somehow a huge hoax.

  On night four after the first email, I went to bed and slept fitfully between my two wiggling boys, Zack, three, and Thomas, two, who always found their way into my room by two a.m. At about four a.m. I sat up straight in my bed, wide-awake, with the name Richard Stearns impressed upon my heart. “Richard Stearns?” I said it out loud, trying to remember where I had heard that name, and who he was. I padded out to my makeshift home office and typed in Richard Stearns… oh yes, he was the president of World Vision, one of the world’s largest and most respected NGOs. I had met him on an earlier occasion and had even lent my voice to their on-hold recordings for their organization.

  Dear Richard, I typed… and began to explain my fascinating but troubling conversation with the supposed Winifred Ticley. I forwarded our email dialogue and asked him if there was any way World Vision could investigate if the claims were true, if Winifred was a real person, if she had starving children,
and finally if I could give a grant to World Vision to care for them. Satisfied, I went back to bed and slept peacefully for the next few hours.

  At about eight thirty, my phone rang and a rich, smooth, warm voice greeted me. “Good morning, Delilah, this is Rich Stearns. You are not going to believe this, but standing in my office right now is a man who helped to establish the refugee camp Buduburam many years ago. It was such a coincidence that I received your email this morning, since I had scheduled a meeting with this man.”

  This man meeting with Richard had worked in Buduburam for World Vision when the camp was first established. He also lived and worked in Liberia after the civil war was over, trying to help people put their lives back together. And although he had not been to the refugee camp in several years, I was told he could help me locate Winifred Ticley.

  Rich Stearns proceeded to invite me to the World Vision offices, which were only about forty minutes south of my home. What were the chances of somebody being in an office forty minutes away who had actually worked and lived in this supposed refugee camp over ten thousand miles away? My car wasn’t the only thing racing down Interstate 5 as I headed to the meeting, my mind was going a hundred miles an hour!

  At World Vision, I was ushered into a conference room, where I was joined by half a dozen people, including the eloquent Dr. Joseph Riverson. Rich introduced himself and then Dr. Joe, a very dark-skinned man with a huge smile and a voice like velvet. His deep baritone sounded like music, even with a simple “hell-ow.” Dr. Joe was born and raised in Ghana, where the queen’s English is the national language, then studied medicine in Ireland, and he has lived in dozens of countries around the world while working for World Vision.

  I was astonished at how naturally the conversation flowed. It was as if I was standing outside of my own body observing the miracle swirling around me. I was speechless at first, unable to conceive how just a week or two prior to this meeting, I’d never given Ghana (or any part of West Africa) a second thought. How I had never thought about people living in refugee camps or what their living conditions might be. How I had never heard of this little 128-acre patch of red clay soil called Buduburam, and now I was seated with a man who had once lived and worked in this obscure refugee camp. And it was all brought to my attention through a strange email I nearly deleted.