Lucky

This is Letlhogonolo. Her name means "Lucky". I met her out in the township yesterday. She's an orphan, and she's seven years old.

One of the neat things about black African names is that they all have meanings - beautiful meanings - like "blessing", "given", "gift", and "victorious". Some people have English names like "Precious", "Princess", "Comfort", and even "Surprise"!

I was gathering profiles on orphans for potential sponsorship yesterday and this thought flashed across my mind: How are they "lucky", "blessed" or "victorious"? They're orphans. They live with many challenges and difficulties. I thought about this all last night and even this morning, and this is my conclusion:

It all comes down to the love of Jesus. With His love, we ARE lucky, blessed, victorious, precious and even surprised! With that love we have the power to bless others, whether orphans, bosses, neighbors, friends or family members. And, in a spiritual sense, we're all orphans, adopted into the family of Christ. "In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons [and daughters] through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us..." - Eph. 1:5-6

South Africans have a wonderful characteristic of making light of their troubles. They laugh way more than Americans do. Yesterday I saw 26 orphans smiling, laughing, joking. I look at the picture of Letlhogonolo and think how lucky I am.