An encounter that I will never forget

by Ignat Ivanov
Director, Mission Possible

I was with the Moscow street patrol on a cold January day when Dmitri came for the first time to the bathing facility to wash himself and to receive warm clothes.

The sight was one of the most terrifying I have encountered during these five years of ministry in the midst of the misery of street life and it´s devastating consequences in children's lives.

Dmitri was extremely thin, yellowish and was barely breathing. He had a hole on his back through which liquid was draining from his badly infected, rankling lungs. His clothes were entirely wet from it. The ulcerous wound was covered with restaurant napkins and scotch-tape.

The smell was unbearable. Even the other street children moved to the opposite corner of the room, trying to avoid the stink from Dmitri's wound and filthy clothes. Dmitri´s legs were covered with spots of rash and mycosis. He was very uncomfortable and ashamed of his condition and appearance.

Dmitri told he had been in a hospital for several months due to a severe lung infection. The matter from the wound had been removed through a tube. The tube left a hole on his back and it never got healed because Dmitri suffered another bad infection shortly after being released from the hospital. So his lungs started filling with matter again and it continued to run through the hole.

It seemed Dmitri had accepted his fate and was expecting to die soon. An Orthodox baptismal crusifix was shining on his thin chest. Judged by the brand new necklace holding the crusifix, he had been to church to ask for baptism only a couple of days earlier. This languishing boy seemed to represent the entire generation of children, abandoned on the streets and destined to perish in the very eyes of the society.

Our nurse made arrangements with the organization "Doctors without borders" concerning Dmitri´s treatment. A boy without identification documents cannot be treated elsewhere. We hope that Dmitri can be taken to hospital before it is too late.