A Prayer for Portia

I've been doing a lot of processing and reflecting on my time in South Africa and beginning to think further about what God wants from me and wants of me as I try to live each day more like Him. I never got to share much specifically here about someone who I met. This person was a small 3 year old girl. Her name is Portia and she suffers from AIDS. And it was in this small and fragile human being, that I experienced the face of God in a true and real way.

Portia was the first child I saw when we first arrived at Doulos Ministries, an HIV/AIDS hospice for children. I tried to let her down and run around several times, but she wouldn't let go. I held her in my lap as she ate her bologna sandwich and drank from her can of Coke. During my time at Doulos, I learned a little bit about Portia's past. She has been at the home for a few months now and just a week before our team arrived, her older brother had been there with her as well. Portia was playing with some of the other children in the house when the newest member of the Doulos family arrived. As the staff at Doulos told us, Portia's brother was brought in and Portia looked up. Her face lit up when she realized that it was her 13 year old brother. Portia and her brother had been reunited again and lived together for some time until AIDS took his life just a week before we arrived.

Even though age and language distanced us from understanding one another, I learned a lot from the short time I spent with Portia. I pray that He will continue to watch over her little body and be with her wherever He may lead her.