To the little girl in the green dress

I spent last weekend in a village about 4 hours away.  Members from many churches in the surrounding area all met together for a few days of bible teaching, togetherness, and lots of singing and dancing! We arrived on Friday around noon just in time for lunch. Some of the women from the village we are staying at are selling foutou with spicy peamont sauce. Foutou looks like a big ball of raw bread dough and has about the same consistency.

As I eat all the village kids come and sit by me, their eyes full of wonder at seeing a white person. I smile and make attempts at communication but without knowing French I feel useless. I can't say anything to them that they understand and I can't understand them either. The afternoon teaching is about to start, and as these kids press in tight around me I notice a little girl in a green dress behind me, looking unsure of where to go. I motion that there is room for her too, to come and sit, and her eyes light up as she runs over and squeezes herself between 2 others right in front of me. The whole time we sit there she keeps looking back and smiling.

As it turns out, where I am staying for the next 3 days is right across from this little girls small cement house, which is probably about the size of my kitchen back in America. As we start to walk there she looks up at me and smiles.  Taking my bag from my hands, she carrys it the rest of the way on her head. Over the next few days, hers is one of the first faces I see in the morning as I step out from under the tin roof of the little house where I am staying. She is never far from my side during the day and she holds my hand as we walk the narrow dirt path back to our houses in the evening, to take bucket showers and eat rice and acheke for dinner. At night everyone meets together again by the makeshift bamboo hut where we have been meeting during the day, to sing and dance for Jesus under the stars. As the Africans dance, their feet kick up the red dirt and it makes a dusty cloud that rises above our heads and up to the heavens. The last night I just sit and take it all in, my little friend exhausted and asleep in my lap.

The next day is Sunday and after church and some lunch we pack up the truck to head back to Abengourou, waving goodbye to our friends who had so generously welcomed us into their homes and taken care of us for the weekend. I hug my friend goodbye, this little girl whose name I don't even know. From the truck as we back out, I see her just standing in her green dress, the same one she was wearing when I first saw her. She is crying, tears streaming down her face. My heart breaks.

I wish I could do something more for her. I wish I could tell her that she matters and that she is loved. I don't really know how to put my feelings into words, but it is something like the helplessness I felt a few days ago when I first arrived and was at a loss of how to communicate. As we drive back over the bumpy dirt-covered roads full of holes, all I can do is pray that Jesus will take care of her. She is His, after all, so I give Him all my worries over her life and trust that He is able to look after her. I realize that I am not the one in control of things and that I can't save anyone anyway. And as I realize that I know I am learning something else too. That maybe just the short time we had together was enough. That maybe how Jesus uses His followers to bring God's Kingdom to earth it is really as simple as taking the time to love the one who needs love right in front of us, one day at a time. And trusting that as we love, Jesus will come and make His love known, the life and hope that this world is crying out for.