Faith, patience & hope...

Last week, Anne and I did a home assessment on two little twin girls: Faith & Patience. Faith and Patience are two years old; they are orphans, losing their mother at childbirth and their father unknown.

Patience is a completely healthy little girl, who is able to run around and play; she can ask for what she wants or needs and can be understood by the family she lives with. Faith, on the other hand, has some medical conditions. There were some issues during the birth that we aren’t fully aware of. She then caught meningitis while in the hospital. Faith can’t walk or run; she can’t speak of what she wants or needs and she can’t look you in the eye.

But she has the most incredible and beautiful laugh.

And I fell in love with her.

I knelt down to get eye level with Faith in her walker. She tried to make eye contact but it just wouldn’t work. Instead she moved her head to the sound of my voice. I took my finger and stroked the side of her cheek. I told her in Swahili how beautiful she was, what a good girl she was. And that’s when I heard her laugh…and saw the sweetest smile.

I picked her up from her walker and held her up against me. I kissed her cheek over and over again. If I stopped kissing her cheek, she would grab my face and try to pull it down to hers. Once I began kissing her again, she would laugh, the beautiful laugh…and press her cheek further in to my lips – for maximum kisses.

I didn’t want to leave her; if my purse was big enough, I would’ve snuck her in it. If her aunt and uncle (her guardians and the only parents she has even known) had given me permission to take her, I would’ve run full speed off their compound and down the dirt road before they could’ve changed their mind.

I saw perfection in this little girl; I saw God’s beauty in her.

Yesterday, the TI team went to a village and did assessment on over 25 children who are either living with their grandmothers or their widowed mothers. These children lived in sad conditions, horrible conditions – no food, no education and no healthcare. Their basic needs were not being met.

One child had a horrible infection spewing from his belly button (we’re taking him to the hospital this week for treatment). There were other children with the malnourished bellies or ringworm infecting their heads.

It took so much in me not to cry….seeing the children and hearing their stories from their mothers or grandmothers. I stared at the children; each of them so beautiful, so innocent. Later, I looked over all them again, singing and clapping and giving thanks to God for what they did have. They had mothers and grandmothers who did love them, who did try their best to provide for these children.

And the children have hope and faith….for their prayers to be answered.

Check out our website for updates on these assessments and some of these children to be sponsored in the next few weeks: www.transformedinternational.org

With Love,
Meredith