I’m a pretty firm believer that the most valuable thing we can do with our life is to positively invest in someone else’s. Show them love. Take them in. Care for them. Prove to them that they matter.
I think I try to do that. Most of the time I feel like what I really do is bounce around, doing mildly good works somewhat haphazardly and wishing that I was making more of a legitimate difference. I guess that requires focus, commitment, and a level of sacrifice that tests how much we truly care and how important the cause is. A level of commitment that is rare, but that I have seen displayed over the last couple of weeks in a beautiful love story.
When Sarah first encountered Aissa, she was nearly dead. Having survived a disease that kills 90% of its victims, her body had literally wasted away to just skin and bones. Noma had eaten away a large portion of Aissa’s facial tissue, and she was left with a gaping cavity directly into her mouth, where her cheek should have been. The first time Sarah saw Aissa, she was lying on the ground outside a local pharmacy, too weak to sit, let alone stand, with an insect-covered cloth covering her face. Her immediate thought was that the child in front of her was about to die.
I have to assume that everything inside of her was telling her to run. After having been in Africa for a little while, I am starting to understand the brutal, but essential mentality of “help the ones you can – don’t beat yourself up over the ones you can’t”. But, God specifically told Sarah to help this one – and she listened.
Sarah took Aissa back to the mission’s hospital in Cameroon, where she was working as a physician’s assistant. Aissa was treated and began the long road back to life. Through the use of nasogastric feeds, she started to gain some weight. But with Noma being such a rare condition – and one unique to West Africa, there are next to no facilities with experience in repairing Noma wounds. Truly by the grace of God, Sarah happened to be working with a doctor in Cameroon that conveniently had spent time on the Africa Mercy the previous year, learning about these exact types of patients. And thus began a great journey that seems to be coming to a glorious end.
Over a month ago now, Aissa arrived on the Africa Mercy, in Sarah’s tender care. I distinctly remember my first encounter with the parentless 8-year-old and thinking how obnoxiously misbehaved she was. Some children are easy to love – and some, by no fault of their own – take an extra bit of grace. It was obvious to me from the beginning that she was going to be one of the extra grace required types. But then Aissa had her surgery by two of the few surgeons in the world who actually have experience in this type of thing
. A few days later she started to feel better and became the self-appointed ward assistant; shredding paper, sticking pre-op photos in charts, helping make assignments, and choosing the music for the ward from the charge nurse’s ipod. Then she started to learn English and would readily declare to her favourite nurses “I LOVE YOU!!!” (which, ironically, sounded like it was coming from an old Italian man every time she said it). Then, she started this habit of falling asleep on your lap while you were working on the computer. Then she figured out the game of memory to a level that very few humans have achieved and was able to whoop us all at any given time. And it 
seems, that somewhere in between all of these happenings, Aissa ended up being one of those patients that touches your heart just a little bit more than the rest and I found that it required very little grace on my part to love her. It turned out that an outpouring of unconditional love from all directions, transformed Aissa into exactly who Jesus always meant her to be.
In a few short days, Sarah will have the privilege of travelling back to Cameroon with a beautiful, brilliant little girl who is full of life and potential. I have no doubt that this life will continue to present Aissa with challenges. But Aissa has proven to be one of the strongest, feistiest, most ahead-of-her-time children I have ever met, which leads me to believe that she will conquer whatever life throws at her with a huge amount of gusto. I believe that she will live life with passion, with purpose, and with determination. And, most importantly, I know that she will live. All because Sarah chose to say yes -which makes me think that when I grow up, I would like to be a little bit more like Sarah.
