The Gift of Esther.

I walk slowly ahead of her as she crawls on her knees.  Her name is Esther and she’s 8-years-old.  I’ve only known her for 11 days and I already feel like she is changing my life.  Really, like God is using her to change my life.  Esther is such a gift to the GSF family.  Girls who have always shut down around me have suddenly opened up to me mainly because they see that Esther and I need their help to communicate {she doesn’t speak English} and they love Esther so much they want to help her.  It opens them up to me and seriously, I have had girls who have run away from me before {slightly playfully} come running up to me to give me hugs.  This is huge – I thought I would never get some of these girls to let me talk to them or even just sit with them again. 

Esther got ‘sick’ when she was two years old and can no longer walk.  If I said this limits Esther’s ability to move I would be a big liar.  She is just like a normal little girl only she has horrible wounds on her hands and feet and she ‘walks’ on her knees.  When I say she walks I really mean it.  She puts shoes on her knees holds her legs up off the ground and scoots around.  She can walk a long way like this and she is fast!  She can keep up with all the other girls walking at a normal pace.  She dances – oh, she loves to dance!  And the swings, she asks me to take her to the swings every time I see her and how can I say no?  She’s already on her way anyways when she asks me.  As I was walking down to the swings with her the other day and the other kids were watching, it hit me.  We are watching a miracle through Esther.  It doesn’t seem so obvious because we didn’t get to watch the first half of this miracle.  She learned to take care of herself and do everything a normal little girl would do before she came to us.  We didn’t get to watch that, but that’s ok because as we watch her, we are watching the second half of her miracle happen.  She is learning so many new things every day.  She’s learning that we are her family for right now and we love her so much!  Hopefully and prayerfully, when her wounds heal up on her feet, she will be able to walk again.

Please be praying for her as she adjusts to this new life.  She will be taken to a clinic that specializes in skin diseases in Tuesday, so please be praying that they will be able to help her!  We are very hopeful that she will be able to walk again but please be praying for that as well because she currently has no feeling in her feet.  The nurses here say that she will probably regain that feeling when her wounds heal up, but we can’t really be sure.

Praise God with us for the gift of Esther!

Esther and her beautiful smile!

Esther standing on her knees to sing with the rest of us at Church.