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Made by: Anite
I drive down to Jubilee early this morning to work.The well is open and there are many children and adults crowded around and carrying precious clean water back to their homes.As I approach the house of Anite, I see two young girls coming with water. One has a 5 gallon bucket on her head…about 3/ 4 full. the other is younger, smaller and carries a 1 gallon container, not quite full, on her head. I am amazed, as I always am, at the carrying of water.
Why is it such a common thing among most of the world and such a foreign concept to me. My kids will well remember me threatening them, as they stood at the kitchen sink, when they complained about having to do the dishes after dinner. ” And how far did you have to carry that water with which you will wash those dishes? “ Oh the peril of being one of my kids!
Anite walks out to greet me with a kiss and we talk about an order of Daisies for today. Shout out to my friend Shelley Clay at Apparent Project, who ordered them from us! Oh the far reaches of that woman’s life of faith and beauty!
We stand outside Anite’s tiny thatch home, the one she moved into this past June. I reach down to fix the collar on the dress of the little girl standing there with Anite’s daughters. She tells me, that the little girl’s family has had many, many problems, they lived next door until recently they were forced to leave. The momma left with the baby and left this little girl behind. Alone.
Anite has taken her in.
She slays me.
Anite is a young widow with four kids of her own. She might weigh 75 pounds soaking wet. I wonder how many days she has gone without food to keep her children fed. Her girls look so healthy and bright eyed. Her youngest has severe water on the brain and many complications. He is five, he cannot talk, walk , see, sit up and he may not have much more time left here on planet earth. I believe he has been loved well by this momma. Her whole face lights up when she looks at him. She is a woman of faith. She is a woman fiercely determined to keep her family together and raise her kids well
So now she has taken in this young girl, maybe she is eight years old. She is so thin and small it is difficult to say. She has taken in another mouth to feed, another body to clothe, another child to hold when she cries.
She slays me.
She tells me that God will take care of them, that He promises to do that for those who care for those in need. So she does.
And I wonder why I am stuck on the Crazy Daisy idea. Why I keep thinking of more and more things to do with them. Made by Anite. Maybe that is why.
-Kathy Brooks
September 13, 2013
