Isaac’s Story

Finding Family in Chongwe, Zambia

Isaac was born to a teenage mom. When his parents separated, Isaac's father re-married a different woman and his mother could no longer support her newborn baby on her own. For a brief time, baby Isaac was sent to live with his grandmother. Unfortunately, his grandmother also did not have the resources to care for the child. It was in these difficult circumstances that, at only one month old, he was brought into ACE's care.

Isaac stayed at the House of Moses while the ACE Zambia team worked to trace his family and provide them the training they needed to be reunified with Isaac. The family tracing work was not easy. Contact was lost with Isaac's mother and grandmother, and it took two years to find and initiate contact with his other family members.

After establishing contact, the ACE Zambia team began counseling and conferencing sessions with Isaac's aunt and uncle. Isaac's uncle Johannes is a retired airplane mechanic, and he and his wife are now farmers in rural Chongwe. ACE imparted to them the importance of the child growing up in a family. Hearing out ACE’s team, Johannes decided that we would take responsibility over his younger brother’s child and raise Isaac as his own.

After some home assessment visits, the family participated in reintegration trainings to prepare to be reunified with Isaac. They also received seed capital to plant extra crops in order to help ease the additional financial responsibility. After completing their training, Johannes and his wife welcomed Isaac to his new home. He was reunited at last with his family.