Many people in the course of our journey have found Jesus in the unlikeliest of places. It has even become a bit of a cliché, a well acknowledged fact, that as missionaries we learn just as much from those we are ministering to as they do from us, more even. However, despite all of that, it is another thing altogether to come face to face with a special needs child and feel more loved by her than you ever have in your life. This is her story:
"Aka, Aka, up, up," she calls to me as I walk through the gate to the home that she shares with 10 other abandoned children. Rolling my eyes and smiling at her feet bouncing, and the dramatic twist to her face as she reaches out to me, I hoist her up onto my hip and swing her around. Jackie, is the most spitfire of a little girl I have ever encountered. Fiercely independent and determined, she commands attention in everything she does. At only five years old, she goes to school, speaks some English, and watches out for the other kids, helping them when they are incapable of helping themselves. She is perfectly healthy; bright, brilliant even, and able to take care of herself more than half the kids I have met her age. So why is she in this place? Why is this amazing little girl one out of the 105 kids at Sarah's Covenant Homes, instead of home with her family? Why was she left at a hospital as a baby?
You would never know by looking at her headshot, but Jackie only has two fingers and two toes, one on each hand and each foot. But, despite what seems like a very restricting physical deformity, she is almost entirely self-sufficient. Her hand joints are also slightly deformed, yet she holds cups, feeds herself, and draws on her own. I actually had the privilege of seeing her figure out how to use a spoon by herself (she usually eats with her fingers like all Indians, but she had seen someone use a spoon and wanted to do it too), and proceed to do so without spilling hardly anything… remarkable.
So why did Jackie have such an impact on me?
There are 100 kids worse off than she is at SCH alone, who cannot feed themselves, or wash themselves, or stand even, yet this sassy little girl is the one that stole my heart. She stole my heart because she showed me Jesus more completely than anyone ever has. Not with a quiet spirit, or incredible sweetness and gentleness, as we often think of Jesus having, but with an active love. She never let any kid feel deserted or forgotten. She once sprinted out of my lap after a few minutes (like normal, as she rarely sits still for long), and surprised me by going to hug a little boy, that is paralyzed from the waist down, who had fallen on the floor and was crying. After hugging him and patting his face, she helped him up so that he could sit and play with us. No matter how rough she had been when she patted his face, or how loud she had been when she was trying to soothe him, she was loving him, and he knew it.
When I went to leave that day, she scurried after me, trying to cut me off. Seeing her raise her arms again, stretching as high as she could, with that look of longing in her eyes, I couldn’t resist, and scooped her up for another hug. Holding tightly to my neck, she said, in her choppy Indian accent, “I love you Aka.” Putting her down and walking away was so hard. She tried to be a strong, big girl and stop the tears as I told her that I would be back tomorrow. Nodding and sobbing, she waved frantically to me until I was out of sight. Thinking about how she had loved Gabe and me, I couldn’t stop the tears, and I realized that today, Jesus had two fingers.
(pics – Top: Jackie. Middle: Jackie figuring out how to look through my pictures on her own. Bottom: Jackie trying to figure out whether to smile or not for the picture, lol. Top two pictures taken by Dura Mcknight)
