Seen, Heard + Loved

Big, dark brown eyes look up from under my arm while we sit together watching the other kids play. "I need to tell you something," he says, as he pulls my face closer to his. He whispers into my ear and for the first time in two years he shares his story.

We first met Arvin* at our feeding program in Payatas rubbish dump. The program caters for children aged between 2 to 6 years who are malnourished and in desperate need of supplemental feeding. Arvin turned up on our doorstep...starving, thin, and skin covered in sores. He smiled when he saw us and told us that he was desperately hungry. We fed him and tried to find out more about his story.

As the weeks went on, Arvin became a regular at our feeding program. We learnt that at only 8 years of age, he was living alone on the streets; sleeping in abandoned tricycle side cars and on pieces of cardboard in the rubbish. He had run away from his home - well not really his home - but the house he was delivered too. Arvin is the product of a baby maker. His biological mother made her living by falling pregnant and selling her babies hours after they were born. Each baby was sold to an "adoptive family" with an illegal, simulated birth certificate. 

For Arvin, this was how his story began. He was first sold to a new family and lived with them until the age of 5. But that didn't last for very long. For Arvin, was abandoned yet again, this time with another family living in the Payatas garbage dump. His "adoptive family" never returned for him.

"Something very bad happened to me you know," he whispers, as he pulls me down so he can reach my ear. He shares how the family in the dumpsite hurt him; tying him to bed frames and beating him with belt buckles, salt thrown into his eyes at night to make him sleep, and food regularly withheld. 

When Arvin ran and tried to hide, they always found him. He tells how he tried to get help from the local barangay (police representatives in the area) .... but they always made things worse when they came to his house. So he ran into the streets.

At just 6 years old, Arvin was alone and scared and hungry.

A local street gang that groom children for prostitution started to care for him. "They made me clothes, you know" he tells me. "But you have to watch out for the people with black masks you know!" These are the kidnappers, he tells me.

He then tells me how clever and fast he was in the dumpsite; every painful detail recounted in an animated and emphatic manner.  

They took his friends, he whispers. And in that moment, with tears dripping from his chin, Arvin shares his pain...he could only save one friend.

"I was too small and just not strong enough," he says, staring up at me with big, sad eyes. They grabbed him one night and placed a smelly piece of rag on his mouth and nose. He pretended to sleep. He was then dumped into a large hole in the floor with other delirious children. When the men with masks left, he climbed through the hole and ran. He just ran.

"We watched from a distance to see if it was safe, and then we ran back to get another kid," he says. But then the men returned. And then, that was it. Not one more child could be rescued.

For two years, Arvin survived on the streets until he stumbled across our feeding program in the hall of a local church. At age 8, he came to live at Safe Haven, desperate to be accepted, deeply malnourished, at times frightened, and utterly traumatized. 

Arvin is now 10 years of age. And how far he has journeyed in that time! To know Arvin is to see an incredibly sensitive, caring and loving boy with amazing artistic abilities. 

Not long ago, Arvin's world was bleak and dark and devoid of hope. It was a cruel, lonely and unfeeling world.

But there is also love and hope and family to be found in our world.

Arvin now sees this world, in its vast array of bright and beautiful colours, which he paints and draws and creates in every space that he inhabits. His world is no longer dark and dull. 

Arvin knows that he has a Father in heaven that sees him, hears him, and loves him. Arvin knows, that he is beautifully and fearfully made. And we pray and wait patiently for his forever family. 

*The name has been changed to protect confidentiality