My first interviewee walks in with a beautiful smile. She sits down and begins to tell me her story. “My father is polygamous. He has five wives and 32 children (yes, 32! That wasn’t a misprint.) He has rejected my mother, his first wife, whom he married when she was 13 years old, and so she fends for her children. She is illiterate and therefore cannot be employed. She also suffers from chronic ulcers and is often bed-ridden. My mother tries to keep her children in school by asking for help from the local politicians. In elementary school, I once had to stay home for half the year due to lack of school fees, but God helped me, and I am now in a national school.
Next comes Stellah, she’s wiry thin and appears slightly malnourished. Her skin is extremely dry. She launches into a similar story of struggle and hardship. Her parents are small scale farmers, and she and her seven siblings often work on other people’s farms to find pocket money to buy some of the daily essentials, food, clothing, soap, and other hygiene products.
Glory follows, and soon after she introduces herself, reveals that her mother died two years ago, and her father has been missing in action for a long time. “He is an alcoholic,” she tells me sadly, “and he spends his time in reckless living.” “My mother’s sisters took my three siblings and I into their home after my mother died, but there are now 7 children under their roof and they are struggling."
Shadavin, a straight A-student, is next. Her mother is a single mother, who makes a little under a dollar a day from selling food on the streets. Shadavin and her younger brother, along with their mother live with their aged grandparents. She reveals, “Sometimes we have food at home and sometimes we do not.” I look at her drooping shoulders and sunken eyes and ask her to describe to me her happiest moments at home. She says, “I am happy when I am sitting with my mother. She has very strong faith and she likes to encourage us not to lose hope.”
I glance at my list of girls and notice that not only are these excellent students, as evidenced by their performance in national exams, they are also good readers (part of the interview process). Each girl has scored a 4.0 or 4.5 on a 5.0 scale. I admit all four into the Esther’s Hope Ministries program. I know I will have to turn some away later today and tomorrow, but not these ones. These four meet all the criteria we are looking for, and with just a little light, these four will find their place on the world’s stage.
Suddenly, a teacher walks into the room during a brief break, he is emotional, “The girls are outside crying,” he says, “Glory fell on her knees before me to thank me for submitting her name for this opportunity. She kept saying, “Teacher, God has answered my prayers. God has answered my prayers. I have been accepted. May God bless you and your friends for what you are doing. ”Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you (Luke 6:38)."