Gifty

Of course it is a name that we would never hear attached to a face in America, but when I hear the name “Gifty” my mind is in constant motion for a girl from a tiny little portion of Accra. She lives in the inner segment of an area called Mamobi. The area is very over populated, crowded, and lingering with the scent of poverty and yet she smiles. Her smile lights up no matter what is going on or how bad things have been. Behind her smile is a story.

It’s just last September that her mother passed away. She had been very sick for a long time, and because of the poverty that she had no way of being relieved of, she was unable to get the medical care that she desperately needed. Medical care is a luxury to us in America.

In America, if we have a cough or headache or backache or chest ache, we immediately make an appointment to see our doctor. Sometimes, it is even less than these things that will cause us to go running after a physician who can “fix” us. In Gifty’s life, there was no chance for a healing, for her mother, nor is there little chance for her to receive care because she can rarely afford a decent meal.

And yet she smiles.

When I think of all that this 13 year old girl has gone through in half the span of my own life, I feel terrible because I haven’t even experienced a fraction of her pain. But that is the story of nearly every face in Mamobi. Behind their eyes is something that none of us can begin to understand from afar. It takes time for them to let us in and to share with us all that God has taken away, given, and gifted.

Gifty, an impoverished girl from Mamobi who is fatherless, motherless, and has not a penny to her name, has offered one of the greatest gifts to her neighbors and those within her city. She offers them a smile.  When I am around her, I realize just how often I frown.

I can only pray that God will allow me the opportunity to meet many more like her.