ATLANTA — Phillip Matthews wasn’t supposed to live.
For reasons doctors can’t explain, he was born kicking and screaming. After 25 surgeries to fix his cleft lip and palate, and part of his brain that didn’t develop, he became the inspiration to help children around the world.
His parents say his story is lucky because he was born in America.
They say if he were born in parts of India or Africa, he likely would have been sold into human trafficking. So, now they fight for kids who don’t have that same chance.
They’re bringing Atlanta in to this fight.
“We did a lot of soul searching,” father Santhosh Matthews said. “Why was Phillip born to us?”
Santhosh and Susan Matthews found their answer in a story from the Bible.
“John Chapter 9 says Jesus and his disciples were walking. A blind man was seated there,” Santhosh said.
The story continues when the disciple asks, “Who sinned that this man was born blind?” The answer: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned. This happened so the works of God may be displayed in him.”
“It’s kind of a weird answer, but to us, the answer to why he was born that way was in that verse,” Santhosh said.
They realized this was bigger than them. The Matthews took their story and started Love Without Reason, a non-profit that seeks out children with facial deformities in Africa and India and performs surgeries to save them from unspeakable pain.
“We found out that children with facial deformities, because of their deformities, are being trafficked into labor, the slave trade or the sex trade,” Santhosh said.
So, they raise money for medical missions to perform these surgeries for a fraction of what they’d cost in the United States. A cleft lip surgery averages $1,000; it’s about $1,500 to fix a cleft palate.
Phillip and their other two kids, Sara and Caleb, go with them.
Group fights human trafficking with surgeries for facial deformities
“We go to the rural parts of the countries and find these children that are unreachable,” Santhosh said. “Children with a facial deformity are not only considered a curse, they’re not allowed in the classrooms in many 3rd world countries.”
Many times the surgeries have to be done within a year and a half or else the child may not speak.
Susan left her job of 20 years as a nurse practitioner to do this full time. She wondered if she had done the right thing until she met one mother in India.
“Her mother started crying and she was like, ‘Why did this happen to me? Why did God do this to me?’ Immediately I heard in my spirit. You asked these questions 14 years ago. You know what to tell her. Tell her,” Susan said.
Susan could speak the language, so she asked to hold the baby and said this: “This is not your fault. Nobody blame Mom for this. Look at my son. He’s going to do great things. Your son is going to do great things.”
Susan says she realized at that moment she had done the right thing.
“Because we lived through it, we can look at those parents and say this is not the end of the road,” she said.
The Matthews recruit doctors from all over the world to perform the surgeries in the child’s home country. They happen on a weekly basis.
So what does all this have to do with Atlanta?
The Matthews are from Chattanooga. That’s where their non-profit is based, but they know Atlanta holds a spotlight on human trafficking and works to fight against it.
“This I-75 corridor is a hot spot,” Susan said.
She and Santhosh decided to bring their fashion show fundraiser here in the hopes Atlanta will join in the fight.
It’s called the Shine Fashion Show. It will be Saturday, April 6 at 6 p.m. at Sonesta Gwinnett Place Atlanta.
Group fights human trafficking with surgeries for facial deformities
LEARN MORE: Love Without Reason
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