For the last 10 or 12 years, I’ve sponsored a child through World Vision. She was a very grim faced Ethiopian four year old when I first received her picture. For the last 10 or 12 years, I’ve received regular updates about her health, schooling and well being. The time has passed quickly. Early in the spring of this year, I received the first picture in a long while. It showed a studious- and fierce-looking 16 year old with a textbook in her hand. I felt so proud of her…not because of anything I’d done, but because of everything she’s done and likely endured. A life for which I have no reference point.

Yesterday, I received a brightly marked World Vision envelope, telling me of important changes to my sponsored child. My first thought was that my sponsored child had “graduated” from the program and was no longer eligible. Sadly, the letter I received told me my sponsored child and her family had left their village and could not be located. The World Vision people tried to be comforting, telling me there could be many reasons a family leaves a village where there is sponsorship. They acknowledged that this news would be hard to hear.

Hard to hear? It was gutting.

What had happened to her? Was she alright? Was she alive? What would become of her?

However passive, I was a participant in her life. At least, that’s how I felt, only I didn’t know it until that moment. I had kept the picture of that little girl on my fridge for years, saying her name because it sounded so great to say. The picture ensured I held her in my thoughts. I didn’t know until the moment I read that letter that I had become connected to her somehow. I knew someone in Ethiopia and I cared about her.

And now she’s gone and I may never know what happened to that grim faced little girl who grew up to be a fierce looking young woman with a textbook. I suppose that in itself gives me hope…because is there anything more powerful in the world than a fierce young woman with a textbook?

I hope she is alive.

I hope she is safe.

I hope she is healthy.

I hope she is thriving.

I hope she is in school.

I hope she is laughing right now.

I hope she will be reading after she finishes laughing.

I hope that once in awhile she looks to the horizon, with the unshakeable feeling that someone is thinking about her. I hope she one day she knows that someone in a country so far away and so different from hers is saying her name.

Emunesh. Emunesh Kokob.

Live long and prosper, my fierce little friend.