The little moments

Take my hand.

Take my hand, you can trust me, I will try to make it right.
Take my hand, I’ll defend you and watch over as you sleep at night.
Take my hand, can we do this together, we’ll both stand up and fight.
Take my hand, let’s look forward, in this dark world you are the light.

The above picture is the hand of the newest member of the family here. Her name is Lucia and she is 8 months. Without knowing it she is a story of hope, without knowing it she is a miracle.

About 5 months ago 2 of the missionaries here had been tracking her health as at that time is wasn’t great. She had been coming to the milk feeding programme with her mother. Then one week she wasn’t there. Sadly as the weeks went by they had assumed she had died. But on Thursday the mother brought her back to the clinic here on site. It was a miracle to see her alive.

As she is malnourished and has a bad skin complaint it was decided that for a while she should come and live here so we can provide the care needed at the moment. Her mother is welcome to visit and hopefully we can help her too as she is not very well.

I sat with Lucia today for what seemed like ages as she tightly gripped my hand. She is a fighter, if she wasn’t I wouldn’t have been sitting holding her hand, I am sure she will make it and grow to be strong. It will take time, care and love from many people but like so many of the kids here, they all have a story and all are miracles. Pray for her over these days. She is getting used to new people, new surroundings and also being away from her mother.

Today it feels like I have made a new friend (Lucia) and connected with an old.

I went for a walk with a dorm of 8 kids in the heat of today (which if it weren’t for the kids was madness). I thought we were just heading down to the football pitch but no… out into the community where I have never been before. It was nice as we walked along and I pulled out thorns from their feet and chatted to their Tia in my little Portuguese. She is very good with them. Her name is Sonia. She and the kids laughed at me today as they tried to teach me their alphabet - only singing it. Well I was getting so confused and mixing my letters up. I must practice tonight so I can proudly sing it back to them tomorrow.

On my way back from the walk I met an old friend. This girl come running up to me and said “what is my name, what is my name?”. I knew straight away who she was. It’s my friend Jentrude (she is in the bottom left hand corner of the paryer card). I wrapped my arms around her and said “Hey Jentude, how are you?” She said “you DO remember me”. What a moment.

That moment showed me the point of stopping for the one. When I arrived here in 07, she was the first girl I had real contact with. Somewhere there are photos of us sharing names in the sand as we didn’t speak each others language. Now it’s fair to say her English is a lot better than my Portuguese. From that small moment a few years ago hopefully I will have shown her that I remembered her and she made a difference to me.