We walked past a family huddled around a tin can fire to enter the apartment building where Jessica and her family live.

“This is how we keep warm in winter,” explained Miriam, as she guided us past heaps of garbage to take a crumbling flight of stairs. We are in Garbage City, one of the poorest neighbourhoods in North Africa, where most families make their living by collecting, sorting, and recycling the city’s waste.

We stopped to greet two women sorting through mounds of rubbish, who were quite cheerful, despite the deplorable working conditions. Upon reaching the third floor, we entered the two-bedroom apartment where three-year-old Jessica lives with her mother, aunt, two sisters, and three cousins.

Jessica and her sisters were running around and playing, reluctant to meet us at first, but her mother, Aisha*, encouraged them to say hello.

Recently, Jessica was gifted with a life-giving surgery that has given her the future she deserves. She previously suffered from excessive fluid in the brain, which was causing her head to grow at an alarmingly fast rate. There is no way Aisha could afford the surgery (the family can barely afford to send two children to school and put food on the table.)

But, with the support of our local partners and people like you, the surgeons were able to insert a device into Jessica’s skull that drained the excessive fluid from the brain and redirected it to her stomach. Now she is able to walk and is even beginning to speak a few words, which would have been impossible without the surgery.

Aisha told us that Jessica goes to see the doctor every two months to receive supplementary medication and in six years she will need another operation to replace the device implanted in her brain.

In spite of the grotesque environment, and obvious day-to-day difficulties of raising her family in Garbage City, there was joy in Aisha’s eyes. She is grateful to the Lord for providing this miracle for her child, and Jessica is a living testimony for all to see.