Guest post by Mckennaugh Kelley

If you have been following my blog over the last few years, you have heard me talk about a little girl who was called Nadia or Levina. Her real name is Katia. My dear friend, McKennaugh, just returned from visiting her and wrote me a letter describing what her life is like now that she is out of the orphanage and with her new family. I have brought you a condensed version of her letter to alleviate your concerns. Below are, 'then and now', photo's of dear Katia. They really don't do justice to the extreme difference that the love of a family has made in her life.

"The word to describe Katia is,"sweet". When I saw her in the orphanage, the expression on her face was one of torture, terror and pain. Now there is a look of love, peace and contentment. She has a little place on the couch in the home of her new family, (but her life is so much bigger than that couch). Her mama will come sit by her and whisper to her and her brothers will constantly bounce over and place kisses on her cheeks. She loves it when her daddy comes home and talks to her so soft and kind.
Somebody's always grinding up some healthy food for her which she has to eat through a tube in her stomach, but she no longer needs to be on oxygen. Every morning her new big sister will wake her up, dress her and do her hair in pretty little bows or french braids. She has grown 9 inches and 21 pounds in the two years since she was taken from the orphanage. When she left that place, she was almost 8 years old and weighed only 15 pounds.
Although her sight is quite limited, I can get down next to her and peer into her pretty blue eyes and say, "look at me Katia". If I give her a second and stay still so she can focus, she will look at me. Despite the fact that she is too crippled and mentally disabled to even move on her own, I suddenly feel like she understands all I tell her. When I look into her eyes it feels like I am looking into her soul, her true self. It is an amazing and humbling feeling. I feel blessed when I hold her. She just lays happily in my arms and doesn't want anything more.
I coo to her and kiss her and tell her I love her. If I get close to her and blink my eyes, she will do a whole bunch of blinks, really fast, to let me know she's paying attention. She sometimes makes little sounds but not very often and hardly ever when I want her to.
She hardly ever smiles. Her big smiles are events that can be recalled. When she wants to smile, the corners of her mouth turn up and she murmurs. She lets us know when she's unhappy and we hold her or figure out what's wrong.
Her family loves her so much and they are grateful for her every day. I know that her care isn't easy, but they all do it with joyful, thankful hearts. Her mama says, "she grips my hand when holding it... I feel overwhelmed with gratitude and a desire to keep her trust.""
--McKennaugh Kelley

This is the little girl that some people thought should be left to die because her life was not valuable. Valuable to who? To her? She was a 15 pound living skeleton, and yet she still cried when people walked away instead of talking to her. She didn't want to die, she wanted more life. Maybe they meant that her life wasn't valuable to God? Well, anyone who reads the word of God knows how He feels about the orphan. He would die for her alone if there were no one else on earth. The truth is that a girl like Katia is as valuable as any of us. Value isn't determined by our abilities.  Value is ascribed to us by our creator and nothing else.
-Jennifer Goodenough