What a beautiful young girl. She has such a winning smile. You can tell she loves being alive. A friend nudges her, and she takes off running after her. She just received her first Chiropractic adjustment. Already her gait is different. I want to take a minute to pray for her and talk to God about her, but I cant. The line for the “table”, which is two rough-hewn benches pushed together with a hand made blanket thrown over them for a semblance of cushion, is too long. Too many people need care.
The rest of the day I think about Bernice. That evening when I call home, I want to tell my daughter her story. I want Ally to be there to befriend her. Ally has such a great heart. I know it is not possible. I know I can’t save every person I meet on mission trips. I know I can’t do everything for everyone. But sometimes I really want to help that person whose story touches my heart.
Bernice is nine. Bernice is “positive.” That means she is HIV positive. She got it from her mother. Her mother died when she was less than a year old. She had no other family. They were all dead as well from AIDS. She was placed in prison at one year old. Why? Why not? What else is a country supposed to do with thousands of orphaned children from a epidemic that was so vast that at one point estimates were as high as 64% of the population was infected with HIV. That was in the ‘90s. Today, about 24% of the population is positive. Thankfully, that number is getting smaller each passing year. The gigantic impact one disease has had on a country is important to understand.
Unlike the Black Death or influenza outbreaks of the past, death does not come quickly with AIDS. No, it lingers, propagates, infects, destroys, and decimates over many long years. Bernice is a progeny of at least two generations of infected Ugandans. Truth be told, it probably goes back much further in her family line.
So what about Bernice caught my attention? It was her story.
She was the first girl I met that essentially grew up in prison. Until she was eight, she knew nothing else. She had never been raped, because she was known as a “positive.” She had seen it happen to her friends many times over. Her upper arm was slightly angulated from a fracture that was induced from a beating in prison that never healed correctly. She could not remember a mother’s care. A kiss on the forehead, being tucked in at night, family meals, Christmas presents, or family traditions will be vacant from her memory as a child.
She now lives in a halfway house with an amazing couple that pastors a small church about an hour from Kampala. She now has a bed, a family, someone to read to her, someone to clean her cuts, kiss her forehead, and give her hugs. She is loved for the first time in her life. She is thriving with this newfound way of living. She smiles all the time now.
When I adjusted her, I felt something in the depth of my heart reach out to her. I wonder if it wasn’t the Spirit of God leaping with joy? I feel something changed in her with that adjustment. I have had positive adults under care in the past that are now negative. I hope and pray that is the case. I hope I can see Bernice next week. I hope I can give her a big hug and look into her eyes.
I expect miracles. You should too.