Reality’s Story: The Day She Went Home
Reality’s Resettlement Day
The day a child goes home from the Love One Center is always emotional.
Months of around-the-clock care, early morning feedings, small milestones, and quiet prayers – all building toward the moment a child walks out the door healthy and whole.
Every once in a while, a story doesn’t end at discharge. Sometimes a family comes back. Not because they need care – but because a mother has something she needs to say.
This is Reality’s story…
How it started:
Reality is a three-year-old little girl who was born healthy and deeply loved by her family. When her mother became pregnant with a second child, Reality was weaned from breastfeeding earlier than her growing body was ready for. Without adequate replacement feeding, she wasn’t getting the nutrients she needed to continue growing, and over time, the effects of malnutrition began to appear.
Like many families living in extreme poverty, Reality’s family didn’t have access to the information needed to recognize the early signs of malnutrition. Closing that gap in knowledge is exactly what Love One’s Community Outreach program is designed to do.
Within a few months, Reality started getting really sick and experienced recurrent illnesses, swelling throughout her body, skin ulcers, and restlessness. Her small body was in crisis, and her family didn’t have the knowledge to recognize what was happening or know how to help.
At the Love One Center:
Following her hospital discharge, Reality was transferred to the Love One Center. She arrived weighing just 16.8 pounds. After several intense weeks of recovery, she was restless and withdrawn, not engaging with the other children or staff.
Over the next five months, our team walked alongside Reality with individualized nutrition, medical care, and daily support as she regained her strength. Slowly, Reality started to change. The swelling resolved, her appetite returned and she began to engage with the children around her.
The day she went home:
In June 2025, Reality was reintegrated with her family weighing 22.9 pounds — healthy, strong, and with a family equipped with the knowledge to continue her care.
These resettlement days are the ones we work for – but this story has one more chapter.
The story continues…
During a recent Community Outreach visit, our team saw a familiar face. Reality and her mother had come back. Not because they needed care, but because her mom had something she needed to say…
She found our staff and shared these words:
“I have nothing I can do for you, apart from appreciating God for using Love One to care for my child and other children in our communities. I pray to God to protect Love One and all her staff.”
It is in moments like these that we truly realize how deeply this work is transforming lives.
Why this matters:
Reality’s story shows what Love One’s full care model looks like from beginning to end.
She was identified through Community Outreach, restored to health at the Center, and is now home with her family, healthy and thriving.
Every part of that journey was made possible because people chose to show up for children like Reality before they ever knew her name.