Lovely Is.

I wanted you to meet a young woman who lives at Melissa’s Hope orphanage. Her name is Lovely. And she is. She is perhaps 13 years old. Less than 5′ tall, slim she has a broad smile and large brown eyes and a classically beautiful face. She is at one moment vivacious and at the next shy. She is smart and present and hopeful. Melissa’s Hope Orphanage serves serves special needs children as well as able bodied. Lovely is special needs. She has a congenital deformity of her ankles and wrists. When she walks her foot bends at the ankle 90 degrees so that she walks on her outside ankle bone rather than on her foot… The muscles that control the flexion of her foot and ankle and her calf muscles are seriously atrophied. She cannot use her hands as her wrists are flexed permanently inward toward her forearms. These conditions are correctable through therapy and surgery. Lovely waits, and hopes, and prays. For as lovely as Lovely is, in Haiti Lovely is marginalized and even scorned by many for her physical defects. As Lovely knows, if her needs are not addressed Lovely has little chance at marriage or a family. Today physical therapists from America will visit MHO. They will meet Lovely and perhaps today, Lovely’s life will begin to change forever.

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