Photo: kids in Zimbabwe along for the ride to fill water containers

I’m currently en route from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe to Colorado, wrestling with the joys and tragedies I witnessed of a courageous people under the siege of a bankrupt economy.

Why are kids orphaned in Zimbabwe? What are their lives like?

Travel along vicariously with me. Consider the stories of these families I met this week through the organization I work with, Hope’s Promise (adoption and orphan care) of Colorado. (Note: To protect the kids’ privacy, I’ve changed all their names.)

John and Eli

John used to be the boy who never smiled. At age three, his parents died. His maternal granddad took him in; until grandpa, too, died. John’s maternal grandma (“Gogo”) then claimed the boy. They developed a close relationship, but Gogo ekes out subsistence as a squatter on farmland owned by a church. As Zimbabwe’s economy spiraled…