I don’t want to leave. This is the first time since I’ve been on the race that I wouldn’t take the first plane out if I could. Tonight we were getting ready to leave to meet the boys in the market for team time as we do every night. Lugika was sitting in my lap, Catherine brushing my hair, and Teresa and Agnes playing next to me while Jessmika skeptically watched.
As the rest of the girls began leaving I kissed Lugika bye and she said “Please don’t leave, stay here with me.” Then she began to cry. This is the first time she’s cried because I was leaving.
I’ve worked in daycares, babysat, and been close to kids before who would cry when I left. But never one that needed love so desperately.
Lugika and her two sisters are refugees from Sri Lanka. They’re parents fled here three years ago after their village was attacked and Lugika got shot. She was two. She still has a rigid, heart shaped scar on her left leg from the gun shot wound. She was two. Two. Someone actually shot a two year old girl simply because she was of Indian descent.
After their family fled here their mother got a job at an Indian clothing store. Their father wasn’t so lucky and couldn’t find work. Eventually the mother just stopped coming home. Their father cares so much for them and is one of the most devoted fathers I’ve ever seen. When the three girls came to the Rhuma Shalom home three months ago they had terrible lice and were living off of four walnuts a day. Lugika still cries when you try to make her eat her dinner because her frail little body just can’t handle that much food.
I love this little girl. I don’t want to leave her. The idea of it makes me cry. I’ve seriously contemplated not leaving Malaysia to stay here with her and her sisters and the 10 other beautiful faces that are starving for love and attention. I don’t know what the rest of the race holds, but I hope it holds more situations like this. If it doesn’t I don’t know how I will ever be able to justify leaving 13 pieces of my heart behind at the end of this month.
P.S. I still need $600 to meet my October 1st deadline (yes, it's almost a month overdue). Please partner in this ministry with me by clicking the support me tab to your left!
