Stories from Beyond the Well: A Story of Hope

Need to catch up on the Set Free story? Read The Prologue, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, and Chapter 5.

A Story of Hope

I shouldn’t be here. I probably shouldn’t even be alive right now. I was born in a small village in Liberia. Every day life here was a struggle, even for something as basic as clean water. My family was extremely poor, and my mother was very sick. She wasn’t even able to produce milk for me.

Miraculously, Set Free arrived in my village when I was only a few days old. The drill crew was there to share Jesus’ message of love and hope while installing a fresh water well in my village. As God would have it, an America missions team happened to be with the drill crews in Liberia that day.

The Right Place at the Right Time

I was probably days from dying, severely dehydrated and malnourished. As soon as Roland saw me, he had to help. He couldn’t just let me die. He found some infant formula in a medical kit and sent the drill crew into town to find some more. That was the day Roland gave me my very first bottle. He literally worked to nurse me back to health. My story didn’t stop there though. God continued to work through Set Free and Roland to write the beginning chapters of my life. As is evident in my life, the right people were in the right places at the right time. The missions team went back to their guest house, but they couldn’t get me out of their minds. My mom wasn’t able to feed me. My family could not afford the formula I would need to survive. My chances weren’t looking good, and I was breaking their hearts.

Staying in the next house, a woman overheard the team talking about me. She just so happened to work for an organization that specialized in international adoptions and wanted to help. Well that changed everything for me.

The next day, the missions team returned to the village to speak with my birth mother and the village chief. The chief then held a village meeting where it was agreed. Giving me up for adoption was going to be the best thing for me. Roland emailed my story to the Set Free supporters, and the next morning my dad was sobbing with him on the phone. He and my mom felt God pulling at their hearts to adopt me. It wasn’t easy. But after several months of paperwork, I found myself again in Roland’s arms. Although this time I was on a plane headed to America to meet my family.

Looking to the Future

My life now is far from perfect. I still argue with my siblings and complain about doing homework. But I have the opportunity to go to school. And I have the ability to dream of the day when I am the next Olympic women’s gymnastics champion. I have a family who loves me deeply, and a church family that recently baptized me into the family of Christ. Because of Set Free, my life is filled with hope.
-Rebecca Wasserman