Twenty-five years ago, Agus Ahmadi ran away from home. The 12-year-old first grader was petrified that he was going to get circumcised — a rite of passage for Muslim boys.
On Jan. 25, 2023, Agus, now 38, was reunited with his mother, 67-year-old Amini, who said that not a day went by that she didn’t wonder where her son was.
The reunion was arranged and documented by a YouTuber named Sinyo, who regularly posts content about helping the homeless and the mentally challenged.
Sinyo recently posted a video about Agus, who she met at a traditional market named Kepek in Yogyakarta. She detailed that Agus arrived by himself as a boy some 25 years ago, and was practically raised by market vendors who gave him food and nursed him when he got sick.
The video caught the attention of Agus’ biological family in the neighboring city of Klaten.
Agus’ reunion with Amini — who was in tears and fainted in disbelief at one point — was a moment they will undoubtedly treasure forever.
“The story went that he was scared of getting circumcised. So he left with his friend and never came back,” Amini said in an interview yesterday, recalling the day Agus went missing in 1998.
Agus, it has been established, boarded a bus from Klaten to Yogyakarta, before finding a home in the market.
Amini added that the family sacrificed so much of their time and money to look for Agus, and that his older sister even quit school in order to fund their search.
“At night I would cry by myself, missing my son. I often dreamed that he was in front of me, and then sleeping next to me,” she said.
Now that Agus is home, Amini says his adopted family are welcome to visit him in Klaten anytime.
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