A pair of Christian women have discovered a newborn baby abandoned in a bin in the US state of North Carolina. Cynthia Burton was out walking her dog when she heard the distinct sound of a crying baby coming from a nearby wheelie bin. Much to Burton's surprise, inside a black binliner she discovered a newborn baby, covered in blood and with its umbilical cord still attached.
Burton immediately called for help at a nearby apartment complex, at which point local resident Tamara Austin came to assist. "She said she found it in a dumpster across the street,” Austin told WMBF. “She was on the phone with 911 when I came out. The baby was breathing he was obviously a newborn...very recent.”
"He still had his umbilical cord around his neck,” Austin added. “The 911 operator told us to take it from around his neck which it wasn’t tight, and I just held him and cleared his airways with a towel and I just held him.”
As the pair waited for medical assistance to arrive, Burton began singing the famous Christian song 'Jesus Loves Me' over the tiny child. “I was praying,” Austin said. “And she (Burton) started singing Jesus Loves Me and I just chimed in with her and saying it with her. I told him someone here wants you. And, God has a purpose for you so, hang in there. And waited until the ambulance got here.”
Burton said she overwhelmed by the resilience and determination the baby boy showed to cry for help, and felt immensely privileged to be able to love and care for the precious child in his first moments of life.
“He’s special," Burton told WECT 6 of the newborn. "He was loved from the very beginning that I got him in my arms and sang, you know, Jesus Loves Me, that he’s gonna live a wonderful life.
"He’s very powerful and very strong because he cried out to live and if I had walked by, and not heard a sound I’d have kept on walking, but he cried, and he kept on crying, he cried until I went and got the bag and pulled him up and, when I opened the bag, he stopped crying. That’s when I think he knew he was safe."
As the comforted the infant as they waited, Austin said she was "praying and talking to him".
"I said, ‘hang in there little man, we have help coming for you, and God has a purpose for you.' He actually grabbed my pinky finger when I said that," she added. "So, that was very heartwarming to say the least.”
After being rushed to hospital, the Wilmington Police Department later announced that the baby was doing well - he has been transferred to the custody of Child Protective Servies (CPS).
Reflecting on the ordeal, Burton is convinced that the Lord led her to the defenceless child.
“I know God put me at that place at that time,” she said.