Walking, Jumping, and Praising God
Valentine’s Day 2016 fell on a Sunday, and on this particular one, I went to a village church and met a little boy that would capture my heart and leave a mark on it forever. He was about twelve years old, skinny, and leaning on a wooden stick. His face was serious. Stoic. When I tried to make him smile, he would not. It almost seemed like his eyes told the story of twenty years of suffering, as if childhood had been stolen from him. And no wonder, for his knee was permanently fixed at a forty-five degree angle, the entire knee joint swollen to the size of a large grapefruit. It was covered in a black, crusty, infected, chronic wound. He had fallen off his bicycle two years prior, and although his family had done their best to take care of him with doctor visits, bone settings, and dressing changes, all their extra saved money eventually ran out, and this little boy remained unwell and resorted to dropping out of school and spending his days on a wooden crutch....