Making space.: A Drop in a Bucket

I had a sleep-over with a 4-year old on Wednesday night.

Charity is from the local community, Dwaleni, and is part of a family that is becoming like my own.

Photo by Carly B

She speaks and understands no English at all. She wouldn’t break physical contact with me. She soaked up every moment of touch as though she hasn’t received any affection since her 20-year old mother had twins when she was less than 2 years old. (It’s not a far-fetched reality.)

She took multiple baths from the big bucket in my bathroom, and we treated her dried out and damaged skin.

Her teensy, malnourished body weighs less than the 18-month olds toddling around base, but she managed to eat several very small meals. She ran around the cottage in a naked flurry of SiSwati-spoken excitement when she not only found Lifa’s toy box, but learned how to play.

The next morning, her eyes, that look like they’d seen 60-years of pain, started looking younger. The cottage filled with visitors, and Charity found herself in the lap of someone combing out her hair, with her limbs spread out for primping, pruning and nail polishing. I secretly rejoiced as she went from silent and solemn to sassy and wiggly.

By lunchtime, she was disobeying. And I was thrilled!

So what if my camera has 400 pictures of her fingers covering the lens?

And so what if my coffee table is covered in granola and there’s juice on the floor? (Not the time to mention the volume of creepies and crawlies I host in the cottage on a daily basis…)

Home is the place where you are comfortable enough to make a mess.

Home is a place where you want to be safely and securely hemmed in.

Home is the place where you know the boundaries, so you can dance all the way to the edge of them.

Photo by Charity

I was hosting just one little girl for just one night.

She came with clumps of dirt in her matted hair, with too-small clothes that carried a festival of odors.

She left with a new hair-style, sparkly pink nails, and a sparkle in her eyes.

Just one little girl, and just one night.

But now there’s one more little girl in the world who knows what it means to be a daughter and a princess, to be plucked out from chaos and to be called worth it. Now there’s several groups of people who know this little girl’s name because she spent the day driving through communities with me, because she felt home in the tightly-knit TTH community, and because I post videos of her on facebook and write blogs about her.

One little girl in South Africa is like one drop in a bucket…

A bucket that can hold the oceans.

But how can we ever fill up that bucket if we don’t start, one drop at a time?

I’ve been completely caught off guard in the past two weeks, swept away by the passion of one itty-bitty drop.

There’s power in noticing one person, even for one moment.

We were made for this.

At 20-years old, Nesisiwe is raising her four orphaned and sick siblings, sacrificing her education to raise her 2-year old baby sister. She was silent, broken and hopeless, somehow managing to hide behind the weak layer of skin that wraps around her frail bones.

Two days ago, she attacked me with affection and wrapped me up powerfully in her arms and her delight. Somebody responded to her. She felt known. She met joy.

One more drop.

Kevin was invisible. So tiny, withdrawn and malnourished, you could hardly see him.

God told me to bathe him, clothe him, and profess a King David anointing over him. Today he giggles, runs and leaps into my arms when I see him. His community knows his name, and he pushes others out of the way because he knows he’s always got a spot reserved on my lap. He feels worth it.

One more drop.

Given’s body is broken, inside and out. He doesn’t know who he is, and his family doesn’t know what to do with him. Shame is draped over him like the darkest night.

Photo by Carly B

I asked one question. I broke one cultural rule. A floodgate of family has opened. We’re beginning a tremendous and unfathomable process of restoration and being known, one looooong doctor’s appointment at a time.

Photo by Carly B

One more drop.

The God Who giggled with joyful inspiration at the very thought of knitting you together in your mother’s womb…

The God Who almost couldn’t stand the ecstasy of writing out your story, ordaining your every single day before He even breathed life into You…

THAT God… MY God… knows you and made you to be known.

He notices you all the time.

He's enthralled with you.

He's captivated by you.

He loves you.

And He gave us all of Him. IN us. And we can give it away.

We can give one moment of seeing, knowing, loving… just noticing… and be part of a Family being restored. Living Water rushes in like a tidal wave when we're willing to put our one drop in the bucket.