One day in the future

Only one of my girls was able to come to small group today, but that's okay. After we'd had a little discussion and started to make our craft for the day I was looking at her and thinking she's one of my favorites. I think there's probably a lot of those, but I really mean it.

I first met this little girl at the government orphanage five or six years ago. She came when her mom had died of cancer. Her dad is a soldier and was sent to one of the border skirmishes, so she and her brothers came to live in this orphanage a few hours from home so they could be near their great aunt's home.

When I met her I thought she was one of the sweetest and kindest girls I'd met yet. In all the years since then I feel all the more the same.

After a few years in the orphanage she and her brothers decided to leave; that they weren't happy there. They wanted to live with their family, so they moved out of the orphanage where all their school fees and supplies were provided and they had food and clothes and so many of their physical needs met because they're not always the most important things in life.

A few years later he's doing so well. She loves Jesus. She loves people. She's still just so kind. She's in school and along with the other girls in my small group have agreed with me that they'll stick it out and finish school.

For the past several years she's said she wants to work with me when she grows up. She wants to love babies that no one else wants. She wants to take care of kids that have no one to take care of them. She wants to teach people about this joy she's found in knowing Jesus.

I believe so much in her future. I believe so much in all the things that God has placed inside of her and I want to see them become realities. And I know it's still a long way off, but I am excited about the prospect of having more staff. I also know from experience that sometimes God really does give you a dream for what you want to do with your life when you are 12. Or younger.

She hasn't had the easiest life. Her life today is still not always the easiest, but she has found the secret to walking with joy in spite of the chaos that can sometimes swirl around us. I might be the one leading the small group she comes to each week to learn about Jesus, but I think the truth really is I have so much more I could learn from her. I hope I get to see the day we really do get to work as peers. It would be an honor.