Faith Like a Child

Walking through our village to catch a boda-boda to the nearby town, Gabs and I have always drawn a lot of attention, especially from the village children. From day 1, EVERY SINGLE TIME they see us, every child runs to the end of their gardens shouting “Mzungu! Mzungu! How are you?”, completely delighting us with the joy in their faces when we smile and wave and say hello and we’re fine and ask how they are.

3 of the neighbourhood children have befriended us particularly. They have begun to not just run to the end of their gardens, but right out into the dusty red road. Giggling, they take our hands so we are walking all 5 of us side-by-side. Every day, they drop whatever they are doing to run to us, laughing at their own boldness, and walk with us hand-in-hand until we have to turn towards the motorway. I have chatted to them as much as their grasp of English will allow, and I have giggled with them all the way down that road, just bursting with love for these precious children who have adopted us as their dear Mzungu friends :)

They are called Adam, Doreen, and Ayisa, and their bright smiles radiate the heart of God to me.

Yesterday morning, as Ayisa slipped her hand into mine, she shyly tucked a bit of paper stained with red dust into my palm… Opening it, I found pictures she’d drawn of butterflies and flowers and leaves and a mouse, and a long letter in strong, even penmanship. “Hello my best friend,” the first line said. She wrote of how her parents died in an accident on the way to their village and left her when she was 3 years old. She doesn’t know how old she is now. She wrote of how one day God showed us to her and how she hopes we can help her to go to school. She wrote, “I am a well-behaved child,” which I already knew from my weeks walking with her and observing her pleasant, quiet nature, “and a girl who fears God the Creator,” which I didn’t know until that moment. She finished the letter by leaving us “under God’s protection.”

I’ve felt a sort of heaviness of heart since. Her precious hand pressed this letter into mine with such hope…

We discussed immediately if she could be one of the girls God is sending to Racham, but as she seems very settled with relatives and taken care of along with the other 2, it seems unlikely. But it costs $300.00 a year for a child to attend school here. And not only being poor, but an orphan, the chances of Ayisa finishing school are slim without help…

Gabi says it’s very common for children here to write such letters, and to make all kinds of requests to a white person simply because they’re white so they must have money, and I see that… but Ayisa, in her quiet, shy nature, asking simply to be helped to go to school because she hasn’t anyone to help her… it settles heavy in my heart. Not feeling very well today, I spent part of the afternoon out of the heat, with curtains drawn, lying in bed and feeling the heaviness of the suffering of the precious children I see each day, the injustices, and desiring so deeply to be able to DO SOMETHING about it all! How come some of us are born on that side of the equator where we don’t have to spend our childhoods hauling the family water from the village pump in dirty jugs? How come some of us are born into countries where we have to go to school whether we like it or not and others just long for the chance to be educated that they might get somewhere in life but the possibility is dangled so high above them that they must long for it like a far-off dream? It seems so unfair that what some people spend in a week in one country could keep this precious child in this one in school for a whole year…

It all felt too big. Not having the money, I felt I had nothing to offer her. And it was heart-breaking.

But that night as I spread my bible study out before me in the coolness of the porch in the evening, He began to speak to my heart. Leah, you have everything to give her. You have Me. I pulled out my notepad and began to write her a reply. Unsure of how to reply except for with one thing. Him.

I told her that I, the one of her mzungu friends named Leah, am leaving in a few days, but that I have so loved getting to know her, that I can indeed see that she is a well-behaved girl, a very precious girl. That the best way I can help her is to pray for her, because that Creator God she fears is the same Father God I love, and He loves her more than words can say. I encouraged her to pray with me that He will provide the way for her to go to school. I encouraged her to call on Him all the days of her life, and that I would be praying for her even when I go home across the ocean, that I wouldn’t forget her, and that He would never lift His eyes from her sweet face. And that He is right there for her to talk to, day or night, because He loves her and sent His Son Jesus so that she could one day live with Him forever. This precious girl with no parents and such a beautiful, dimpled smile and a heart so wide open it would love the whole world…

When we woke up this morning, 2 of Gabi’s friends had responded to the call she put out on Facebook for sponsors to send Ayisa to school :) So even before I could hand her my reply to the letter on our morning walk encouraging her to trust Him, He’d answered our prayers. My Abba-Daddy will not forget the orphan…

And when she learns of how He’s provided, I pray she will not think, “Mzungus have the connections to help” but “God is so big and He loves me so!” and she will be drawn to love Him more than anything in her world all the days of her life...

And He speaks to me in this about having faith like a child.
I have a lot to learn from beautiful little depictions of His heart like Ayisa. I will cherish holding her hand for 3 more days before I leave for Entebbe. And I will pray for her for much longer…

Thank You, Abba! Your love is so big...