Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress. --James 1:27 NIV
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| Leika, Loving Life! |
Once upon a time a little girl lost her mother in childbirth. Then her father in Haiti's earthquake. And then her granny took her to the orphanage, and she lost the last member of her family. Her name is Leika. She is my newest granddaughter. Finally, after three-and-a-half years of Haitian paperwork, seven-year-old Leika is finally home with her "forever" family.
My daughter and son-in-law went the end of January to get her, a little girl with so much loss: mother, father, granny, home, language, culture, weather, friends, caretakers. I haven't met this castaway yet; she has to first learn who her new family is, her now home, her new siblings, everything new. And then I can.
Until then, Heather and Dallas give a daily report on Facebook. Daily I check the updates. She's taking all things in stride. She met her first escalator at the airport in Port au Prince. She loved it. Up and down, up and down. She met her new big brothers (Rome, 12; Kodi, 10) at the escalator in Seattle. "Go!" said her parents. Up and down on the escalator three siblings bonded. Once "home," it became apparent she loves the outdoors--oblivious to the cold, playing for hours at the pond, on the trampoline, in the swing. She's funny. She's smart. She's a total tomboy. She and her big brothers are hitting it off to the point she won't sleep in her own pretty pink room but on the floor with Rome and Kodi in theirs.
Someday they'll start bickering as all sibling do and someday Heather and Dallas may even wonder why they ever did such a thing. But this I know. Taking on an orphan is pure and faultless before God, an everlasting responsibility with its own reward.
My daughter and son-in-law went the end of January to get her, a little girl with so much loss: mother, father, granny, home, language, culture, weather, friends, caretakers. I haven't met this castaway yet; she has to first learn who her new family is, her now home, her new siblings, everything new. And then I can.
Until then, Heather and Dallas give a daily report on Facebook. Daily I check the updates. She's taking all things in stride. She met her first escalator at the airport in Port au Prince. She loved it. Up and down, up and down. She met her new big brothers (Rome, 12; Kodi, 10) at the escalator in Seattle. "Go!" said her parents. Up and down on the escalator three siblings bonded. Once "home," it became apparent she loves the outdoors--oblivious to the cold, playing for hours at the pond, on the trampoline, in the swing. She's funny. She's smart. She's a total tomboy. She and her big brothers are hitting it off to the point she won't sleep in her own pretty pink room but on the floor with Rome and Kodi in theirs.
Someday they'll start bickering as all sibling do and someday Heather and Dallas may even wonder why they ever did such a thing. But this I know. Taking on an orphan is pure and faultless before God, an everlasting responsibility with its own reward.
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