|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Agape Home - Thailand Written By: Simon Gonzalez Photos By: Ron Storer 
There was nothing cute or cuddly about the two-year-old girl. She had diarrhea, an infection that caused her ears to seep, and a distended stomach because of an enlarged liver and an enlarged spleen. She smelled. The doctor looked at her, and judged her to be beyond his help. She had full-blown AIDS, and it seemed only a matter of time. A short time. “Leave to die,” he wrote on her chart.
But when Avis Rideout, a Canadian Christian volunteering at the orphanage, looked at the girl, she felt God stirring her heart. “I came home that day and said to my family, there’s a little girl in a government orphanage with full-blown AIDS. I want to bring her in,” Avis said. “She was a write-off in society. She was dying. She could hardly sit on your lap because of the smell. But God very much impressed on my heart to bring this girl home who was dying of AIDS.”
“I always say when God speaks, you’d better move,” she said. “And if he doesn’t speak, you’d better stand still and wait until he does.” God spoke, and Avis moved. Because she moved, today the little girl is a healthy, happy, engaging 9 year old. Avis and her husband Roy adopted her, and named her Nikki. She remains HIV-positive, but there are no signs of the disease. She likes to laugh and play. She likes to wear bright colors, and have her sisters fix her hair. She likes to sing about Jesus.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
