Just Imagine

Just imagine that you are a little girl and you wake up to your mom leaving for work, you can hear the roosters crowing and the smells of breakfast enter your bedroom. As your mom walks out the front door you watch as she walks up the street around the livestock and on her way. You then leave yourself to go play with your friends and talk to people passing by. You may play with the the pigs, chickens, roosters, ducks, cats or even the dogs that may fill your front yard. You wash your face and hands and begin your day like you would any other mid winter morning.

Now imagine this same little girl is 3 years old, left alone in the muddy, fecal lined pathways of the slums of Eastleigh. She is left to be tended by probably nothing more than a mildly concerned neighbor, she can smell breackfast being cooked but may only get the scraps of what another may not eat. She walks along the paths falling and playing with the animals and the other children wiping her own nose and putting her hands in her mouth as any young toddler would. Wondering aimlessly around her 6x6 tin roof house for something to do she quickly becomes board and goes back out side to the front yard that is more like rolling hills of tin huts that she shares with over half a million others not including the animals she shares her play area with. The water she uses to wash her face and hands with is the water that runs over the paths and streets listed above, it is the same water that is used to cook with, wash clothes with and maintain the sewer system.

I saw this little girl today, not only did I fight back tears along with my gag reflex more times than I can count, but I prayed. I am not going to lie i was scared to death as our group set out to the streets. As my foot left the safe haven of the MITS Eastliegh center I started with Dear Heavenly Father- andI prayed for 8 hours straight. I prayed for our group, our safety, the 9 new boys, the team members that were going a different way than us, the people on the farm, our families, their families but before I brought my prayer to a close I prayed that my 4-year-old daughter Izabella will never have to live like that and thanked God for the blessings he has given me to provide for her.

-Amen