Nisondiya {Joy}

This morning at the yardsale (some precious people threw me a yard sale to support fundraising), it could’ve been easy to be negative. It was FUHreezing outside, and we had snow later in the day. At 7:30am, I am not in the best oh my gosh I’m so extra awake moods. And like I said, it was colddd. After I woke up a little and had a cup of coffee or two, I was doing better, but I still wasn’t in the best mood ever. Probably because it was cold. Haha. {If you can’t tell, I didn’t like the cold.} Then it happened. A kid showed up to the yard sale with her parents. I was smitten. You could tell by her appearance, that her family is struggling to make ends meet, yet they came to the yard sale/fundraiser to support my move to Mali. As I’m typing this, it just hit me how selfless that little girl’s family really is. If you could’ve but seen the pain I saw in her eyes, you would know. That little girl, who we’ll call J, didn’t have the money to buy all the toys she saw and wanted on the toy table. Yet, her dad would give her 10 cents here, and 25 cents there to make a purchase. She even chose a baby doll. A baby doll me and my sister used to play with when we were just a little bit older than 4 year old J. In J, I saw the kids next year. I saw the Malian beauties and the pain in their eyes. I felt the pain of wanting to hug little J and whisper Yesu b’i kanu. I wanted so badly to be there in Bamako with the kids. Then I looked away as my eyes teared up. But, I know that I was there today for J. I know that God has a plan even in our meeting that lasted about an hour. I loved that her family hung around the yard sale, just talking and chatting, and laughing. Oh, did we laugh. And when little J rubbed her precious little hand over Coco (that is what she named her new little doll baby that she bought) I thought I would melt. She took care of her new baby so tenderly, and I wish I had had a camera at that moment. The way she looked down at the baby doll… gosh, it was darling. I wish I could’ve brought J home with me and showed her all my other old dolls from when I was a little girl… and given them all to her. To see them as He sees them hurts, people. It really does. But then sometimes it’s really good too. Today was both of those. And it was wonderful.