For the last 20 years, Mohamed Bzeek has taken in the sickest of the sick children of Los Angeles’ foster care system. Every child that Bzeek takes into his home has a terminal illness and no one else to care for them. Over the last two decades, Bzeek has buried 10 children, some of which have died in his arms.
“If anyone ever calls us and says, ‘This kid needs to go home on hospice,’ there’s only one name we think of,”said Melissa Testerman, a Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) intake coordinator who finds placements for sick children. Bzeek is the only foster parent in the area who will take these children in.
LA Times
Most recently, the Libyan immigrant welcomed a bedridden 6-year-old girl with a rare brain defect into his home. She suffers from daily seizures, limb paralysis and is blind and deaf… but Bzeek loves her like she’s his own.
LA Times
“I know she can’t hear, can’t see, but I always talk to her,”he said. “I’m always holding her, playing with her, touching her. … She has feelings. She has a soul. She’s a human being,”Bzeek said.
Bzeek, 62, is a kind man with a long, dark beard and gentle voice. The oldest of 10 children, he came to America from Libya as a college student in 1978.He started caring for terminally ill children with his wife, and after she passed away he carried on the daunting, but incredibly rewarding care of these kids.
LA Times
“The key is, you have to love them like your own,”Bzeek said recently. “I know they are sick. I know they are going to die. I do my best as a human being and leave the rest to God.â€
LA Times
There are about 600 children at any given time that fall under the DCFS’s Medical Case Management Services. Many of these children are indefinitely hospitalized until someone like Bzeek comes along… but there are few people in the world like Mohammed Bzeek.
There are 600,000 kids currently in the foster care system. We hope Bzeek’s story inspired you to consider how you could change the life of a little one forever.
Share this man’s incredible mission with your friends today.
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