Salim’s story is one that begins with sadness and woe, but ends with happiness and joy.

It starts when he was only four months old when his father took him to a hospital in Kenya where Salim was treated for malnourishment and pneumonia and where a defect was found in his heart which required treatment.

However, with his heart literally broken, the infant child would have his heart broken in a second way when his parents simply disappeared from the hospital without their newborn son, leaving no way for anyone at the hospital to contact them.

When he was able to leave the hospital, Salim was taken to the Lewa Children’s Home in Eldoret, Kenya. There, he received the care and treatment he needed, and more importantly, he received love.

And, even more good news, after a few additional hospital visits, the doctors were overjoyed to learn that the treatment had worked – the defect in his heart was cured.

Today, Salim is about 8 years old still living at Lewa.

He has transformed from being an extremely sick, abandoned infant into a cheerful child who, has recovered from not one, but two, broken hearts.

“I am Odero!” he proudly exclaims today.