by Brittany, DTS staff, Uganda
I knew we would be friends from the first moment that we met. We were sitting around the dinner table eating rice and chicken. Angela sucked on a chicken bone that stuck out of her mouth. I couldn’t help but smile at her. She smiled a toothy, eight-year-old smile back at me, bone still in place. I put a chicken bone in my mouth hoping to make her smile back. She did. After dinner, we brought our plates to be washed. I asked her what her name was.
“Angela,” she said.
“I have a friend named Angela,” I told her.
Her face lit up as if to say, “you do?”
“I think we will be friends too, My name is Brittany”
“What?” She laughed at such a weird name. “Brinky?”
“My name is Brittany, but you can call me Britt. That’s what my friends call me and since we are now friends you can call me Britt, too.”
“Bread?” She laughed again.
I laughed too. “You can call me Bread.”
The past few days when I have gone to the children’s home, she runs up to me, saying, “My Friend!”
I pick her up and twirl her.
Angela has a heart of gold. I catch her smiling for no reason. She loves to sing and worship. Every night there is a time of praise. Her favorite song is one that says:
If Jesus loves you nobody can say no
If Jesus loves you nobody can say no
Can say no. Can say no
If Jesus loves you nobody can say no
If Jesus heals you nobody can say no…
And she will sing it from the bottom of her heart, leading us all in singing of Jesus’ love that no one can deny. Although Angela has HIV, nothing is going to stop this girl who is in love with God.
As ministries like Amecet continue to teach kids like Angela to take their ARV’s daily, more children like her can live long lives. This is the next generation of world changers right here.
But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Luke 18:6
Today as I was leaving, Angela said to me, “Bye, Auntie Bread!”
I smiled. “What shall I call you? Apple?”
With a twinkle in her eye and without missing a beat, she said, “Apples are my best food!”
“Good. Apple and Bread,” I said. “Good friends. Bye, Apple.”
“Bye, Auntie Bread!”