DEEP WATERS
The Story of the Micah 6:8 Project
by
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Christy’s wrist ached. She had endured her second carpal tunnel surgery just days before leaving for Africa, and the stitches were still in place. Yesterday the kids had pulled and yanked on her hand as they pawed at her, desperate for a piece of candy or for a McDonald’s toy that many Americans could find stashed under the seats in their car. She had fastened a wrist brace around the healing incision and quickly gathered her luggage that next morning, thankful to be leaving the guest house and its unwelcoming owner. In this moment at the lake, she was glad she had agreed to return one last time. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, casting its expanding glow. She got out her camera, happy to let the rest of the team deal with the children and their mothers. It was still dark outside, yet the children were already amassing around the team and their bags of toys and candy. Maxwell was trying his best to organize the children as he repeatedly told them to “form a line!” He had definitely been a blessing to the team on this trip.
Christy turned back towards the sunrise.
A boy stood there at her feet.
She hadn’t even seen him walk up.
He was just…there.
The boy had to have been no more than three years old. He wore a denim button-down shirt, frayed at the edges, brown pants with a hole in the knee and dusty flip flops. He was clutching the brown teddy bear he had just been given. His big brown eyes looked sad and familiar. Christy immediately knew where she had seen those eyes before -on Ed’s phone.
“It’s him!” Christy cried out to Kim Fair.
Christy squatted down and held out her hand to him. His eyes stayed fixed on Christy’s as he grabbed a hold of her. It was Sammy; she had found him. Christy stood holding the boy as he ate a Dum-Dum sucker, and her friends snapped photos. She tried to keep her emotions in check. Her heart felt a bittersweet mixture of happiness and sadness. She knew this would be her life’s work, to help children like Sammy.
They had already stayed longer at the lake than planned. She finally knew it was time to leave. How could she bear to put him down? She couldn’t.
She turned to Hack and handed Sammy to him as he tearfully exclaimed, “Why would you do this to me?”
When the team got to Kumasi later that day, the reality of what they had just experienced started to fully settle on each of them. Christy found herself sorting through heavy emotions. She had finally made it to Yeji, one of the major slave hubs in Ghana. Though she had known the stories of children working on the lake were true, she had now seen them with her own eyes, and she felt angry that everyone else in the world seemed to be oblivious to it, getting ready to go to sleep in comfortable beds while these children were alone, dealing with unmanageable hardships. She had finally found Sammy. She had held him, and then she had left him there. He was so little! What was his story? Christy was rattled. Kim Williams was her roommate in Kumasi and fortunately knew her well enough to know that when Christy got stressed or upset, she appeared angry at everyone and just needed space. When Christy threw her suitcase, Kim knew Christy was the most shaken that she had ever seen her.
Christy was finally able to text Ed and update him on the events of the day:
“We went back to the lake one last time. I was standing taking pictures and who walked up to me? Sammy. I totally lost it. He is precious Ed.”
“Really!!! My Sammy?? Can you get him here?”
“Yes your Sammy…. I wish. My heart is broken. I couldn’t put him down. Hack had to take him.”
“That’s sad. I’m speechless.”
“I looked down and immediately knew it was him.”
“How could you not? He is precious. My heart hurts for him. Did you talk to him? How did the conversation go? What did he say?”
“Yes. I held him. He didn’t talk but snuggled.”
“I bet he liked that, being held and loved on.”
“I’m broken. Ugly cry. How can I leave him here?”
But they did have to leave. They left Yeji, then Ghana, then Africa itself. Sammy, Gideon and all the other children they had met had left an indelible mark on the team. Christy took comfort in knowing that Kwame was still in Africa and was planning on finding out more about these boys and how the Micah 6:8 Project could help. She could not have known just how closely their stories would intertwine.
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About the Book
When Christy Farhar finally made it to Africa and met children who had been rescued from slavery on Lake Volta in Ghana, she knew she would never be the same. After a miraculous encounter with one special little boy on the shore of the lake, it seemed clear that Christy was to bring him out of his life of child labor and adopt him into her family.
However, when the unexpected occurred, it became apparent that a different kind of rescue would be needed. Deep Waters is the story of how one woman’s call to Africa birthed the Micah 6:8 Project to combat the cycle of poverty halfway across the world. It is also the story of how unspeakable tragedy gave rise to the founding of Jacob’s Wells and how grief transformed the focus of a ministry.
Within these pages, we are invited to follow God into the unknown and experience the amazing events that can happen when a surrendered life collides with a God who is always on the move.
“You hold more than a book in your hands. Within this story, there is an occasion to bear witness to a God who moves relentlessly through ordinary people. Discover in these pages, as I did, that He intends to rescue and free the most vulnerable, often through unusual and surprising means. The shores of Heaven will ripple with the miracles logged in this unbelievable story.”
Lauren Alexander - Pastor, Speaker, Foster Care Advocate
About the Author
Rachel Hayden lives in southern Indiana with her husband, Ryan and their children Noah, Alli and Jeremiah. She works as a physical therapist, volunteers in children’s ministry and loves to write but had never imagined becoming an author until a trip to Africa with her friend Christy landed her in the middle of a quest to tell this remarkable story.