Esther

Meet Esther...the first person we met in the Joe Slovo community. Joe Slovo is the name of the squatter camp my group was assigned to. We had to pass Esther's stone, one-room home on our way each day...she was our first stop. It was actually her neighbor, Christina, who was our patient...but it was Esther's smile and wave that greeted us each morning.

Esther lives in this concrete block structure with 3 doors, almost like a duplex. Esther's home is the one with the red door, in the middle. There is one "toilet" out back inside a make-shift outhouse made of sticks and plastic. There is no running water, so they have to go down to Refilwe to get water in their buckets and haul it up a path, around a sharp curve, back home. Esther lives alone. More on the neighbors later...let's talk Esther.

Esther seemed to be the care-taker of her little compound. She is a widow herself, but contacted Refilwe about her neighbor who needed help. Upon our first visit, she also informed us about her other neighbor's little boy, who had a sore on the lower part of his tummy. It was a bad, oozing sore...obviously full of infection even to my un-trained eyes. We told his mother to take him to the clinic...then we told Esther to make sure she did so :0)

Esther was funny and lively. I pulled out pictures to show her my family. When she saw Eden's photo she asked if my husband was Chinese. "No," I replied, "we adopted her from China." "You can't have babies?" she asked. "Well, that's not exactly the case...we chose to adopt." Okay, huge culture gap here. She clearly didn't understand because her next statement was, "Maybe it's your man...or maybe it's your eggs." I bursted out laughing. She was serious as a heart attack. "Maybe," I said.

I loved visiting with Esther and looked forward to her smile each morning. In our first chat, she told me she was old when she started having children...she was 21. She was clearly an open book. I asked her if she knew that there was a queen named Esther in the Bible. She did not know this, so I opened my Bible and showed her the book of Esther. A smile spread across her face. "You have a good name," I told her. "Queen Esther saved her people." A look of satisfaction across her wrinkled, lovely face. I think she could relate. Later she asked for a Bible of her own. We promised to let Refilwe know so they could get her one.

Esther's toes stuck out of the ends of her worn-out shoes. She wore the same clothes everyday, had no family living with her, and had little in the way of worldly possessions...and she was such a blessing to us, and to those around her. Her widow neighbor that she told Refilwe to help was mean as a snake to her...but she looked out for her anyway. God looks out for Esther, I'm quite sure. I asked what size shoe she wore that first day and she told me...she never asked for shoes. I just couldn't stand the thought of her exposed feet in the winter (it was winter when we were there and the nights were very cold). She had no warm, heated home to retreat to. On our last day, we got permission to get Esther some shoes from Refilwe. We dug through the box, looking for a size 8 pair of warm shoes...fashion was not important. We needed comfortable warm shoes that would be easy for an elderly woman to walk in. Finally we found some and set off for our first stop.

When we got there, Esther was not there and her red door was locked. We didn't even get to tell her goodbye. Her neighbor said she was at the clinic...so was the little boy next door with the sore. Sweet Esther. I laid the shoes in front of her red door and prayed for her. "Lord," I prayed silently, "Please make her know You gave her these shoes. I don't want her to think the white Americans brought them. I want her know they are from You." Maybe for the first time in my life I understood what John meant in John 3:30 when he said, "God must become greater; I must become less."

I will always remember sweet Esther. Hope you enjoyed meeting her, too. More on Esther's neighbors tomorrow. Here's one more photo for you. Have a blessed day!