Peter Mutabazi lived a difficult life.
He grew up in a small village on the border of Uganda and Rwanda. Peter’s family was so poor that they couldn’t afford food so they grew their beans, peas, and sweet potatoes. He started helping his mom in the garden when he was just 4 years old. There was no clean water, so the kids had to walk 2-3 hours to bring some water for the family. Poverty was all they knew.
But that wasn’t all. Peter’s dad abused the whole family. Both verbally and physically. The man would beat his wife, deny his children food, and as time went by, the abuse got only worse.
When Peter was 10, his father sent him to get cigarettes. When he was on the way to returning home, it was pouring rain and the cigarettes got destroyed. Peter knew that if he returned home, his father will beat him severely. Terrified to come back, he ran away instead.
Peter had to go through a lot of trials and tribulations to make a better future for himself. But he persevered.
He finally settled down in Oklahoma to start a real estate business. He had a house with two empty bedrooms, his mind couldn’t be at peace knowing some kids needed a place. So he went to a foster agency and devoted his life to serving children.
“In the USA, you have to take parenting classes and be licensed by the state you live in if you want to be a foster parent,” Peter explained the process to Bored Panda.
“All foster children belong to the state. Since I was licensed under a private agency, they would approach when they needed a home for kids. I have had 12 kids in the last 3 years, ranging from 2-11 yrs. Since I’m single, I could only handle 2 at a time.
”
Peter met a boy whose story was too painful to even for the man who had seen it all.
One night Peter received a call from his social worker asking, “Can you take in an 11-year-old boy just for the weekend? It was a few days after he had lost two brothers he was fostering. So Peter thought he didn’t have enough energy left to care for another child at the moment. But the social worker convinced him to take in the child.”
First, Peter didn’t ask anything about why Anthony was in foster care. The man couldn’t handle any more tugging at the heartstrings. He decided that if the placement exceeded the weekend, he would send him back. He said he will not allow him to stay any longer out of fear they would get close and, once again, only to return to the loss and grief.
The social worker arrived at his home with the boy at 3:00 a.m. after driving two hours from another county within the state.
Peter told Anthony he could call him ‘Mr. Peter’ but just 20 minutes after his arrival, he asked if he could call the man ‘Dad.’
The social worker arrived and Peter decided to ask why Anthony was in foster care. She told him that “the boy had been abandoned by his biological mother when he was 2.
He was then placed with a family that served as elders in their church. Eventually, they adopted him but almost ten years later, the same family that raised him, abandoned him at the hospital and never came back.” Peter was shocked, asking the universe, “Who would do that?” And, then Peter knew he had to take him in.
They have been living together ever since. And on the 12th of November, Anthony finally got to share Peter’s last name. His adoption was made official in a Charlotte courthouse and photographer Cole Trotter captured the precious moment.
“I have not had any difficulty with the adoption,” Peter said. “[It] took longer but I knew he would be my son … Nobody wanted him and it’s really hard to find homes or families that would take an 11-year-old boy.”
“I am truly blessed to have him, I feel like I have needed him or that he changed my life more than I have changed his,” Peter said.
However, he didn’t stop fostering kids.”It’s hard to be a single foster dad but it’s worth every minute of it. We are about to have another child and we are thrilled.”
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