Mimoza

I don’t know why but this year I always seem to become attached to and to attract the girls who are kind of on the bottom of the hierarchy of orphanage life; the girls who cannot talk or really take care of themselves. In this hierarchy, at least where I am right now, there is one girl who is the oldest. She has the most control. Just her presence or the mention of her name is enough to make the girls straighten up. Then there are the older girls who are under her. They have a lot of control over the younger ones. They can boss them around, send them on errands, and do their dirty work for them. It doesn’t matter if the younger girls are in the middle of something, they have to drop whatever they are doing and cater to the needs of the higher rung on the ladder. After the girls who are like the slaves are the little ones. These girls are not old enough to get bossed around for errands yet, but they are bossed around to do the things that the girls that are just above them don’t want to do. Those things could include eating their leftover food, throwing away their trash, carrying their possessions, etc. Then after the little ones are the girls with major special needs. Of course, there are times when the girls above them on the ladder are nice to them, but those moments are few and far between. These are the girls who cannot speak (or cannot speak well), they cannot stand up for themselves, they need others to watch over them all the time. Most of the time these girls seem to be just kind of pushed to the side and not focused on at all. When we do a program we focus mostly on the girls who will be able to understand what we are talking about and just hope the others will see our love. One of these girls on this bottom step of the hierarchy has really touched my heart.

Her name is Mimoza. I met Mimoza two years ago. She has some disease that has infected her organs in her belly making them expand to far beyond the normal size that her stomach should be. She always seems quite anxious and when she gets excited she rocks back and forth so far forward and so far back that sometimes it seems like she will hit her head on the ground. She can talk, but it sounds like she is saying it almost as if she were underwater. You can hear the noise, the pitch of her voice but you have to listen very hard to try and understand what she is saying. When I knew Mimoza two years ago I loved her, but almost because I felt so bad for her. Now when I see her and spend time with her trying to see beyond the things that bind her, I can see the story in her eyes. She doesn’t look into your eyes often, but when she does it is so deep. They tell a story that I wish I could hear. I was privileged to be able to spend 5 days in the presence of this princess. During our time at the school, she remembered me. She recognized me and I feel like God had a plan to open my ears to be able to hear her; to understand her words. I was able to have small conversations with her and during these conversations I knew that she was hearing me and I knew that she understood what I was telling her. I feel like she can pay attention and does pay attention more than people give her credit for. She loves it when people rub her back and play with her hair. During the four days at their school, the entire time she had these three clumps of white stuff in her hair. With this white stuff, no one really wanted to touch her hair. After the weekend in Bucharest we had two days of carnival fun where the girls came to the boy’s transition house and we had so much fun here. During this carnival we had some carnival games, lunch, a zip line, a slip-n-slide, and we washed the girls’ hair. We found out that the white stuff in her hair was gum and had been there for over a week. One of the girls on my team had some oil that could get it out. The whole time she was getting her hair washed she was so excited. Afterwards she brought me a comb and I helped her brush her hair. She loves it when the back of her hair is played with and she looked so cute. She had a smile plastered on her face for the rest of the day. I love this sweet girl so much. I don’t know if I will ever get to see her again here in Romania, but I know that the time I did spend with her was so special. During the slip-n-slide she couldn’t really grasp the concept of running and sliding on it so after most of the people cleared off she and I just jumped in the puddles that were leftover. It was a precious moment that is written on my heart and I can’t forget about it. I am so thankful for my time with Mimoza. She taught me so many things that I can’t even begin to describe them to you. I don’t know what this disease will do to her, but I know they are surprised she has lived this long. I don’t know if I will ever see her again, but the only thing I can do is put her back in God’s hands. He has her safe and sound, right where she should be.


she is so precious.