Child Rescue Magazine

One morning my Husband and I were driving from
Rustenburg to Pretoria, on the N4 Highway for a
routine Gynecologist checkup. At the time I was
about 26 weeks pregnant. We were excited to see
our baby girl on the scans again as we were counting
down the checkups until we were going to meet her
and hold her in our arms.
As we were driving, something caught our attention, I
wasn’t sure what I had seen but we both felt strongly
compelled to turn around. We found a safe place to
do so, and by the time we got back to the scene a
truck driver had also stopped.
There, right next to the white line on the tar, lay a baby
boy, his body so perfectly formed but lifeless, blown
out of a plastic bag… abandoned. It was clear that he
hadn’t been there long as there was no insect activity
yet. With every car that rushed by, I dreaded the bag
blowing up and pulling his tiny lifeless body away, but
he lay there, stuck to the tar with the flapping plastic
bag somehow still attached to him. Everything in me
wanted to pick him up and console him, hold him, help
him! But it was too late! I stood there, torn between
feeling my own baby moving frantically inside of me,
probably sensing my tense emotions and the lifeless
baby on the roadside that I could do nothing for. I had
never felt so helpless in my entire life…
Knowing that we could not move him, due to forensic
proceedings that would have to be followed I started
looking for something to cover him with but couldn’t
find anything that wouldn’t compromise what now
had turned from life into evidence. Instead, I started
phoning the police, first the closest police station.
They said they would send someone to the scene.
Thirty minutes later no one had responded so I called
again at which point the jurisdictional card was
played and I had to call another station that I must
say responded rather quickly. We thanked the police
and allowed the truck driver to give his report as he
had been the first responder on the scene. Still in
shock and with heavy hearts we continued to our
doctor’s appointment.
I had phoned the Doctor’s office to inform them we
would be late, so she already knew to debrief us
professionally and confirmed what I had expected.
The baby was about the same gestational age as our
daughter at the time, and the Dr said her suspicions
would be that the baby had been dumped there after
an illegal abortion. At 26 weeks of gestation a baby is
still very small but has a decent chance at survival
should it be born at this point provided it receives the
correct medical care. Unfortunately, this baby was
never even given the chance!
We went on with our day as ‘normally’ as possible
although we were clearly moved by the events. We
prayed about it and asked the Lord to turn a difficult
situation into something good. I asked God what we
should do and received word from Numbers 16: 46 –
48 “And Moses said to Aaron, “Take your censer and
put fire in it from the altar, and place incense on it;
then bring it quickly to the congregation and make
atonement for them, for wrath has gone out from the
Lord, the plague has begun!” Then Aaron took it just
as Moses had spoken, and he ran into the midst of the
assembly; and behold, the plague had begun among
the people. So, he put on the incense and made
atonement for the people. And he took his stand
between the dead and the living, so that the plague
was brought to a halt.”
The word atonement is used in the bible to make
reference to ‘cover, appease, cleanse, cancel out, put
off or reconcile’. According to Wikipedia atonement
is defined as: “Atonement (also atoning, or, to atone)
is the concept of a person taking action to correct
previous wrongdoing on their part either through
direct action to undo the consequences of that act,
equivalent action to do good for others or some other
expression of feelings of remorse.”
Since this incident we have become very passionate 6