Benji

Benji is an 8 year old boy who came to the Children's Home last year. Benji had never been to school until he came here so he started in preeschool and has now progressed to Kindergarten. Dan Andreson has been tutoring him one-on-one. He seems intellegent but has trouble focusing. But he is SO sweet. At church the other day, he sat at Macy's (my daughter) feet, took off her shoes and started cleaning all the dirt off her feet and out of her shoes with his little fingers. Macy just watched him in awe. Then he carefully put her shoes back on.

His last name and birthday are unknown. Benji showed up at a police station and no one could figure out where he belonged. He stayed there at the station for 1 and a half months, being fed by the officers and given small jobs such as escorting prisoners to their cells. After many conversations with him, all they could determine was that he had no parents, his sister left him at a neighbor's house, and that neighbor abused him. He ran away and after being homeless for a while, got himself to the police station. He either doesn't know anything else or has experienced some trauma.

In this pic we took Benji and the other boys to a basketball game - Jeff Long (the founder of the Home) has a son in college who is considered one of the best players in the league!