LITTLE OLD LADY…Adopted

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Recently through my church, I have financially adopted Leydi Sofia and her mother. Leydi Sofia will be six years old in July and lives in the coastal town of Corea, in Santa Marta, Columbia. Her mother is a domestic servant earning about $200 a month. The letter I wrote to Leydi has to go to the governing office, then to a translator and then to the child. It is a long journey but I am excited to wait for her letter back to me. I am her only sponsor and my gift will help her with school uniforms and sports equipment as well as health care and Bible study. I probably need to start studying Spanish again, as my two years of college study have not left much in memory. I was a good Spanish student. In fact, I was so good that my teacher asked me to spend the summer in Mexico helping translate the Bible from English into Spanish. But it was wartime and my parents didn’t have the money I would need for a whole summer of study. I still think about that missed opportunity. Today I enjoy going to Mariachi’s and saying “Hola” to my server and “Como Esta” and the response to her “Bien.” But that’s it, folks! I felt like such a misfit at home that I asked my mother if I was adopted. She laughed at my question. Even if I had been, it probably wouldn’t have answered this strange hole in my heart. I probably needed therapy for some reason, and only found release in the poetry I began to write. The loneliness was intense. There is an interesting program on television about finding lost families. There are mothers and daughters and brothers and sisters who seek to be reunited. After many years they meet and the tears begin to flow, both on the program and in my chair as I feel the happiness in the reunion. It would be interesting to see if the contact lasts because the connection has not been built from years of being together. The bond is tenuous and will require a lot of work to go forward. I have never adopted a child before, from the many programs available. But I have adopted a lot of animals and birds. One year three tiny birds were lost from a nest in a tall tree in the front yard. They were bright yellow and the bird book established that they were Pine Warblers. I thought I would try to keep them alive as they were too young to fly back to the nest. Hubbie warned me I would have to crush crickets to hand fee them. They were eager eaters and I kept them in the large parrot cage on the back porch. They got to be so tame, that they would walk off the perch in the cage onto my finger for me to feed them. About the time I was ready to release them, a cold evening came up. I put a blanket over the cage, but to my dismay the next morning they had all died. I should have brought the cage inside or put a light bulb near the cage, but I didn’t know. I guess if they had been in a nest, Mama bird would have kept them warm under her breast. But, who keeps mama warm? In truth, I really have been adopted. Because I was not born a Hebrew, I am not of the chosen nation. But God wants me in the family anyway, and so He has adopted me because He loves me and wants me forever. I feel the warmth of the large family that I am a part of and loneliness is filled with the love of many others. I hope all of you feel the warmth of family also. God loves you and so do I.