kalingalinga

I can’t really describe today in words.
It was just something that had to be experienced.

I got up this morning and went to visit children in Kalingalinga.
Throughout all the visits, usually there is one that sticks out and today that visit was one with a 16 year old girl named Esther.

Esther is beautiful. She looks like a young woman, not a girl. And while we sat in her kitchen she told us about herself.

We asked her a lot of questions and made some small talk and then we asked her what she likes to do with her friends. Then it got real. Her response was that she didn’t have many friends and she couldn’t look at us because of her shame. Then she began to tell us that she does have friends because we were there to visit her. She said she can’t even say that she is an orphan because God is her father and Every Orphan’s Hope visits her. She’s not alone.

It was beautiful to see her tear up while she talked about what God has done for her. She’s only 16 and her faith is so much stronger than mine. She can say that she is blessed after her father has passed away and her younger sister sits on the floor in a corner all day because she is lame.

I asked Esther to scoot over on her bench so that I could sit by her while we prayed for her. I slipped my hand into hers and she grabbed onto mine with the other. While we prayed she just wept. And we prayed and we prayed. I know God has great plans for Esther and that he will be her provider, her shepherd, her Father.

I don’t think I will see her again. And the hardest part about leaving her house was telling her that it might not be until heaven. Spiritually we will always be close, but physically not so much.

It is such an honor to me to sit and pray with children like Esther. The best and most amazing blessing of my life. I am so unworthy of her presence. I am so blessed to bear her heavy burden, even if I only held the weight for a little while. It was like I was comforting Jesus. He is so present with the orphans in their distress. He blessed me immensely and ministered to me through her.