She stood in the middle of the dirt road with a heart melting smile and a baby on her hip. Her shirt was too small and her bulging belly revealed another child was on the way. She was happy to see me and asked if I could come and visit with her for a while. I left my task at hand and went with her to find out what was going on in her life. She let me take the child from her hip and as we walked and talked, her other little girl came running up to us talking fast and quickly grabbing my hand, saying I was her new friend. Both children were barefoot and barely clothed and I offered to carry the second child as well. She told me it was okay, they were used to it and their feet were tough. We walked along the road and she told me that she remembered me telling her that God had not given up on her and neither had I. She said she has been going to church near here and asking God what to do. This country doesn’t give women like her many options, but she believes that God will help her. She invited me to see where she lived so that I could find her, if I ever wanted to visit.
As we walked along the rocky dirt road, I could smell the child I was carrying who obviously hadn’t bathed in a while. I kept looking at the other little girl’s dirty bare feet walking on the rocky terrain. Then she stopped and said, ‘there it is. This is where I live’. I tried not to look shocked as she motioned for me to follow her up the steep trail to the building that was her home-just a small block building with a concrete floor. No doors, no windows, no electricity or plumbing. She asked me to come in as she explained that she lived there with her cousins. There was not any furniture, except for the bottom of a spring type frame. No mattress, nothing soft to lie on…just springs. There was lump in my throat and I was willing myself not to burst into tears. We went back outside where she took a little dress off a tree limb and put it on the older girl as we sat on the ground to visit. The little girl crawled up in my lap and the stench of her hair was overwhelming. I looked around and noticed that there was not even a makeshift shower or bathroom outside.
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As we sat and visited, the little girl started chatting with me and then she looked up with big brown eyes and told me something in Spanish that I wish I hadn’t understood – ‘Tengo el hambre’ (I have hunger). It seemed like an eternity, me looking in her eyes and begging God to tell me what to do. You see this woman has been begging for years. She knew what it was like to have a good, safe, protected life. Then she made a mistake…and now has to suffer the consequences. They say that she will never learn and she just keeps begging. They say if you give her something today, she will be back tomorrow. They say that she sells what people give her and still has nothing. I say WOULDN’T YOU? If you had no food and hungry children, wouldn’t you beg? Wouldn’t you sell anything you could get your hands on to feed your children? I say that God commands us to love anyway. I know that there are hundreds more just like her out there and the problem is way bigger than I am, but I serve a God that is in control. I know HE hasn’t given up on her…and neither will I. There are 83 children here at Faith Home and I am begging God for wisdom to make sure that we give them the best opportunities in life, that we keep them safe & protected, but most of all ... I am begging for their souls. It’s their relationship with God that I want them to value most. Through that relationship, HE will transform them and the world around them.
As I sit here typing, I can still smell the stench on my clothes of the children that I held. I can close my eyes and imagine their little bodies curled up next to their mother on those springs or even the floor. A few years ago, I prayed for God to break my heart for what breaks His…today He crumbled it to pieces.
