The story of Refli Kurniawan

I met Refli in December 2010 when I was visiting his sister, Santi, one of Melbourne4orphanS' beneficeries. We were in our Indonesian holiday trying to spend as much time as possible with our parents. But my sister for some reason was very insistent that we had to visit Sinta in her home town in Pasaman which is around 6 hour driving from my hometown in Padangpanjang. I soon found out why as we arrived at their house.

This is what they call 'house'. If you stretch your hands, you almost reach the two corners of the house; when you stand, your head touches the roof; the floor is dirt soil; the wall was made of used timber; there's no ceiling to protect the occupants from the heat of equatorial sun. I politely declined to their invitation to go inside of the house because I couldn't bear the heat inside.

Santi dan Refli's father passed away six years ago. Their mother works as a shepherd, minding a neighbour's catle. Santi was in her second final year or schooling, she was very grateful that we sponsored her, without which as she said, she wouldn't be able to finish her school.

Refli was twelve years old. He is as old as my oldest son who was coming with me. But physically, he was as big (or as little) as my four years old daughter. He was born without anus!

I was shocked when I was told about his story. Medically, he was supposed to have operation when he attained the age of two. But that did not happen because of their poverty, and because no one helped him, not even the government! I don't know why we should have a government in Indonesia if they can't take care one of their citizens who needs most like Refli.

All this time Refli had to rely on the artificial hole created on the left of his stomach to go to toilet. Even to properly manage this supposed temporary solution, they could not afford to buy the medication and the bags! No wonder Refli was many years behind in his physical, intellectual, social and emotional development.

I promised Refli's mother that we were going to help Refli to have a normal life. I wasn't sure that we could help him through Melbourne4orphanS because prior to this our commitment only to help orphans with their schooling.

God makes it easy for Refli. Not only we got approval from other board members but also money came from every where to help him to have operations.

Refli had undergone three operations in Padang in his bid to have a normal life. He is still waiting for the fourth and final operation in June this year. But already he is a different child. He puts on more weight and develop rapidly in term of intellectual and emotional development.

Refli has changed our course. Since then we have helped Mega, a 7 year old child to have an operation to remove a gal stone. This poor child was always in constant severe pain since she had this stone in her bladder four years ago. Thank God, our little help makes such a big different to a child.