A Special Moment in Ghana
A few Samaritan’s Feet team members recently traveled and served in Ghana with Sanford Health. Whitney, Director of Missions, met an amazing young woman at a spur-of-the-moment distribution and had a life-changing moment with her. Here she is telling the story:
Dworzulu is called a special school because the students who attend have special needs; autism, down syndrome, cerebral palsy. It’s one of just a few schools like it in Ghana.
We had planned to only stop by this school in the afternoon after our large distribution that morning at a different school. This was a school and residential facility for the kids who attend. When they saw that visitors had arrived, all of the kids came running out to greet them. Immediately we knew that we couldn’t just drop the 30 pairs of shoes we had brought and leave. The director was kind enough to agree to letting us do a distribution for the whole school, about 150 children.
All of the kids came into the room and sat down on benches, quietly waiting for their turn to have their feet washed and receive shoes. Many of them, as they were sitting down across from me before I even took their shoes off to begin washing their feet, would say, “God bless you” with giant smiles that never left their faces while their eyes followed every move I made. You could tell how happy and excited they were to have someone giving them undivided attention.
A young girl named Eunice in a bright yellow dress sat down across from me. She looked to be about 11 or 12 years old, but I found out later that she was 28. She couldn’t speak, but her smile was the most beautiful I’ve ever seen and from the second she sat down she never stopped smiling. I removed her shoes and started washing her feet, her new shoes were brought over and I put them on.
I grabbed her hands and asked if it would be ok if I prayed for her. Even though she couldn’t speak, I knew that she understood every single word I was saying. As I was praying, I felt the spirit of God’s love over this sweet girl. I wanted her to know how much she was loved by God and that she was perfect in His eyes. I prayed that He would provide for her, that He would always be by her side, and that He wouldn’t leave her. I couldn’t get through the prayer because I was so emotional.
I knew she could tell how emotional I was while praying and she kept gripping my hands tighter. We both had our heads bowed and she leaned her forehead into mine, almost as if to say “it’s ok.” I think I had this sadness for her which is what made me cry—I was sad that she seemed to be trapped in this body that wouldn’t work for her, but inside her spirit was completely free of any kind of discouragement and she desperately wanted to be able to speak to me and tell me what she was thinking and feeling.
When I finished praying, we both opened our eyes and tears were POURING from both of us. She immediately gave me a hug and wouldn’t let go. The tears kept coming. She eventually went back to her seat, but every time I looked up she was always looking at me. She waited there in the room until we had completely finished with the distribution and came back over just to sit next to me, she put her arm around me as if to say again, “I really am ok.”
There was an immediate unspoken bond in the truest sense of the word. I know that God had a plan that day for our little group to be at this school and specifically for Eunice and I to meet. This distribution wasn’t even supposed to happen according to the “schedule,” but God always has a better plan and I’m so thankful this school was part of it that day in Ghana.
Our team will be going back to Dworzulu in September to throw a fun party for all of the students complete with music, dancing, games, and cake, and I can’t wait to see Eunice again.
