This, is my girl. Meet the beautiful, the sweet, the precious… Tyra!
I was visiting last October when this little girl came to be a part of the NFFCH. Tyra, who was just over 2 years old at the time, came along with her younger brother Chris John and her older sister, Alex. I vividly remember the scene when these 3 kids came into the nursery. All of the other kids were trying to see the new ones, trying to peek into the room and find out who they were. Chris John was just a baby, and actually, a pretty happy baby. But Alex and Tyra were old enough to be scared about what was going on. Alex was old enough to know what was going on; she sat upstairs in the nursery with her younger siblings, crying quietly in a chair, facing a wall so nobody could see her. Tyra, I’m not sure if she completely understood what was going on, but I think she had an idea. But she didn’t cry like her older sister. She didn’t do much of anything. She didn’t want to walk (though she could), talk, sit, eat, drink, play… anything! She stood near the couch with a blank expression on her face, her jet black eyes staring off into space…. absolutely no emotion evident.
Tyra when she came last October
The first day, Benjie was in the room with us, and he told her in Tagalog, that I was going to eat her. Being the punk that he can often be, he never did correct himself, and needless to say, Tyra was quite scared of the weird white girl who apparently, was going to eat her. It actually took her a good couple weeks to warm up to me at all! But for me, it didn’t take me weeks at all to fall in love with this little angel. The day she came, was the day that something in my heart just jumped for her. My heart aches for the pain that this innocent little girl has experienced in her first two years of life. It makes me absolutely sick to my stomach to think of what she has had to endure. It takes absolutely all of my strength and then some just to restrain myself from wishing bad things upon the people who hurt her. It is hard to let God be in control and know that this is not my battle.
But what I can do, is to show this beautiful young girl what it means to be loved and cared for. To show her that I love her, I think about her, I want to take care of her needs, and have fun with her. When I think about the call of God, to care for orphans and widows (James 1:27), I can think of no better example than this young girl. Tyra is an orphan that came from a terrible situation, and now we have the opportunity to CARE for her. And it is my joy to care for Tyra each and every day, whether it be pushing her on the swings, stopping by the nursery for a quick hug, getting her dressed in clean clothes with her hair done up nice and neat, talking with her about monkeys (one of her favorite animals), or reading a book with her in the nursery… in all that I do, I hope and pray that Tyra can know what it means to be cared for and loved, in the way that every 3 year old should.
Tyra and her siblings have been at the home for just about a year now. They are doing great and despite many battles along the way, are healthy as well. Tyra just recently turned 3 years old, and is beginning to talk a lot more. I ask that you would pray for Tyra’s emotional health, which although it is hard to tell with her young age, has the likelihood of being damaged from her troubled past. Pray that this beautiful young girl would be healed from the wounds of her past; that she would be able to know what is right and wrong behavior as she gets older. Pray for her as she is beginning to talk more and more, pray for her hopefully beginning to potty-train soon. Pray for her development, for her heart, for her mind… pray that she would know that there is a God who loves her and wants to take care of her, way more than any of us volunteers at K.I.M ever could. As you can probably tell, I feel pretty passionate about this one in particular. Although I would be sad if she weren’t at NFFCH, I also ask that you would pray that Tyra, Chris John, and Alex would be adopted into a loving, caring home. And that they would be able to be a family with two parents that love them, like it should have been all along.
