Assel ’s Great Grandfather Loved Orphan Children

This is a story passed on from a friend in Kazakhstan who works with college students and collects their stories. This one truly is an expression of the love of God. I really think she should write a book one day.


I want to tell about my great-grandfather from my father’s side. His name was Karim and he lived in western Kazakhstan. I heard about him when I was a child because my grandmother always told me stories about her father. Before the Second World War he worked on a farm and he had three children including my grandmother. When the war had begun, he was one of the first who had gone off to war. In the war he had lost one foot and so he returned back home. When he went back home he analyzed that most of the adults had died in the war. Then he decided to collect all the children who had lost their parents.

Even though he was injured in the war, he raised and supported these children by hunting without one foot by riding on a camel. My grandmother tells me a lot of stories about how my great-grandfather hunted. Also they ate some rabbits and a couple of camels. My grandmother said that when she was a child they would eat camel’s meat and the camel’s hump tasted like gum. And all children liked the hump because they chewed it like gum.

My grandmother always said we lived not rich but we always loved and respected our parents. And my father said that he was very kind and funny man, he always smiled and he loved children especially his own grandsons and grand daughter. I think that may be they lived in poverty but they had a big together family.

He was a wonderful man. I do not remember all the stories about my great-grandfather, but I really know that he was a hero.