Joylin
Please send your New Year’s gift today to help transform the lives of children with disabilities, like Joylin, living in Papua New Guinea…
Your gift will be multiplied x5 by the New Zealand Government Aid Programme!
“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of Mine, you did for Me.” – Matthew 25:40
As we begin 2024, please be encouraged by this remarkable testimony of a little girl’s life that is being transformed in the remote Highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG). Thanks to generous people like you, little Joylin now lives with a happy heart, after experiencing a challenging start to her young life.
As other babies learn to stand, walk, talk and feed themselves, Joylin barely crawled. She could not walk or speak or hold things in her hands. Nor could she see well, squinting in pain under the hot tropical sun.
Please commit this New Year to your ministry of love and kindness, by sending a wonderful gift to help precious children like Joylin.
Your gift will be multiplied x5 by the New Zealand Government Aid Programme to help find children and support their disabilities in transforming ways. And your kindness will help families to end the cycle of poverty and disability.
After Joylin was born, her mother tried to help her little girl the best she could, but Joylin’s needs were challenging. Then when Joylin was still a baby, her mother left her as she was given an opportunity to study. Sadly, that would be the last time the family would see or hear from Joylin’s mother. She did not return.
With Joylin’s mother gone, Joylin’s dad Dorume thought he could care for Joylin. But he too was left in an impossible position. He also had to leave Joylin, and his three other children, to find construction work in another village.
He had no choice but to leave Joylin with his extended family. It troubled him deeply to leave her, but he had to find work to provide for his children.
“I worked so I could buy milk and other things for my children, especially Joylin,” he says. “I had to leave her in the care of my relatives.”
Being left by both parents was very traumatic for Joylin.
In the world’s poorest places, having a child with disabilities makes extreme poverty even more difficult. This is the double challenge of poverty and disability. Please send your gift to help end the cycle of poverty and disability today.
Left with her relatives, little Joylin unfortunately fell into a level of neglect, despite the best efforts of her extended family. Her relatives needed to work and provide for their families too, so there was very little time to care for a child with so many needs.
When Dorume returned to Joylin and the family, he was overjoyed to see his precious daughter, but his joy was short-lived as he realised that she needed more care than he and his family could give. What was he to do?
Sometimes, in times of great need, a ray of sunshine comes shining through. And thankfully for Joylin, her dad, and the family, a ray of sunshine came through in the form of a wonderful woman called Anna – who Dorume asked to become his wife.
In Proverbs 18:22 God says, “He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favour from the Lord.” Joylin’s dad was truly blessed to marry Anna.
How nervous he must have been, introducing his new wife to his children. Especially Joylin, with her specific needs. He was worried that Anna would turn and leave, just as Joylin’s birth mother had done.
But he needn’t have worried, for Anna had a kind and caring heart.
“When I first saw her,” Anna says of Joylin, “she was so beautiful that I fell in love with her at first sight.”
“She couldn’t hold her food or other things. She couldn’t speak properly or pronounce words. She couldn’t walk and she had problems with her sight.”
“I knew I had a job to do: to care for her and to help her.”
What a kind heart Anna has. A heart like yours!
Anna became Joylin’s loving stepmother and made it her responsibility to help Joylin live life to the full. Even if it seemed impossible, she wanted to see this precious little girl walking and talking like any other child.
Anna started by creating a lovely warm bond with her new daughter, simply by carrying Joylin around in a bilum – a beautiful traditional womb-like bag woven and worn by mothers in Papua New Guinea.
Joylin’s new mum cared for her with incredible patience. “The only way we could feed her was to mash sweet potato and spoon feed her.”
Dorume played his part too. Wherever he worked, he always asked around – can anyone help my little girl?
That is how he heard about cbm’s impactful ministry in PNG, supported by generous people like you – to help children like Joylin transform their lives.
Please send your transformational gift which will be multiplied x5 by the New Zealand Government Aid Programme to help more children like Joylin.
Thanks to loving kindness like yours, Timothy, a cbm-funded community rehabilitation officer, was sent to meet Joylin.
Like Anna, Timothy saw real potential in this little girl, but her disabilities had no simple solution.
Under Timothy’s watchful eye and specialist skills, she would need to endure a long and difficult road of rehabilitation.
In a valley so poorly resourced that a line of tree branches makes a bridge… Timothy used ingenuity, skill and the ongoing support from people like you, to build Joylin a frame that helped her learn to stand.
Joylin learnt to balance! She worked so hard. Her little legs, which had never been used, got stronger day by day.
Timothy also made some papier-mâché and built Joylin a special form-fitting chair so she could strengthen her spine.
Next, he built her a parallel bar. No more crawling! Despite her family and relatives’ doubts, Joylin started to walk!
It was a long and tough process, but you should see Joylin now. She can hold her own food. No more spoon-feeding.
“Her hands are strong now,” Anna beams, “It makes me so happy to see her walking by herself to the pot of food – and taking the biggest piece of sweet potato.”
And after eating, what happens? Joylin always says, thank you.
She speaks! This is the girl who gave no sign of ever saying a word. Now she has begun to talk!
Anna laughs happily about this and says, “Everyone is John to her. Regardless of who they are, she calls them John.”
This is such a joyful outcome – and it’s thanks to generous cbm supporters, like you, who faithfully give to help children on a long and challenging road to overcome barriers to participating in life. Thank you for being willing to help end the cycle of poverty and disability.
Anna and Dorume hope to have Joylin’s spine x-rayed and assessed. And if she can keep improving her speech, there could even be a place for her at a cbm-funded inclusive education school. Equipped with specially trained teachers and equipment, these specialist schools help children with disabilities to gain an education.
For an abandoned, neglected and speechless child to go to school… that is a true miracle of love, care and support.
Please keep helping children, like Joylin, to achieve milestones that family, relatives and neighbours could hardly have believed.
Please prayerfully consider sending your New Year’s gift today. Your gift will be multiplied x5 by the New Zealand Government Aid Programme to help cbm-funded field workers find children through outreaches and mobile clinics. It will also help provide the life-changing frames, chairs, special shoes, crutches, walking frames and other orthopaedic devices to help children stand and walk. And it will help unlock the minds and tongues of children no one believes can speak and learn, through expert disability therapy and special equipment for inclusive schools – such as Braille machines and assistive equipment like glasses.
Thanks to generous support like yours, the saddest and most challenged child in the village has a far better future!
Dorume says, “I never thought my daughter would do these things! Walking and talking! She never would have reached these milestones without love and care from a great mother – and a cbm-funded community rehabilitation officer like Timothy.”
What a powerfully effective ministry. Thank you for being willing to go the extra mile, again and again, so children like Joylin can overcome extreme disabilities and reach miraculous milestones. Thank you for your kind and caring heart and for being willing to help end the cycle of poverty and disability. God bless you.
Little Joylin was born with many challenges to overcome. She could not walk or talk or eat. But now she can, thanks to support like yours. Amazing milestones! Please help other children like Joylin by sending your transformational gift today. Your gift will be multiplied x5 by the New Zealand Government Aid Programme to help find children and support their disabilities in transforming ways. Thank you for your ongoing support. Your loving kindness and generosity will help end the cycle of poverty and disability.
