We’re sitting in a dark seven by seven room on a mat of dried twigs woven together. Only one brick layer separates inside from outside. The scent of dirt, dry grass, and the musk of the goats follows the pinpricks of light seeping in through small holes where the cement mortar is wearing away. This room feels more like outside than inside, yet here we are, sitting inside.
Wait, not a room—well yes, to me a room, but to a family, a home. One room, a home.
A Malawian brother and sister, Rose and Franklin*, sit side by side across from us—in the dirt, having given us the place of honor on their mat. The teenagers invited us in and as we visit, their story comes out piece by piece.
And I put on Rose’s shoes, as she speak in halting English, and I imagine.
~
Imagine being a thirteen year old girl.
Imagine being in poverty, your water supply a hand pump a one and a half mile walk away, your meals being boiled corn porridge only twice a day, your bed a straw mat on the ground you share with your entire family.
Imagine your parents getting divorced—the heart break, the confusion. Then they abandon you, your three older siblings, and your younger brother, choosing to start new lives in new villages, completely leaving you behind.
Imagine your older siblings—all girls—soon getting married, leaving one by one, until only you and your ten year old brother remain in the village you call home.
Imagine being a thirteen year old girl.
Imagine bearing the weight of being the sole caretaker of you and your brother. You know that you can get married, easily, and escape into another life as your sisters have done. But you know this means forfeiting your childhood and the education you have been striving to succeed in. Marriage also means you abandon your brother, leaving him on his own in this world that has been so hard to you already.
Imagine knowing that most girls your age who are unwedded and without parents get raped. You know that your village allows, and sometimes even encourages, this practice as a rite of passage for girls like you to stay.
Imagine being a thirteen year old girl living in a village in the Dowa disctict of Malawi.
Imagine being Rose, a living breathing human who lives this reality day after day.
~
My heart is crippled with every step I take as her, with her, in her story. Blistered and bleeding, I limp to find something in this. Praise God, it comes, a cooling wave, a friend I hold close to my heart, a word I struggled with for far too long; hope.
At thirteen, Rose didn’t have anything on her side. She was stuck between marrying as a child, or continuing with her education—something she would have to come up with the money for. Thankfully, she was identified by Rise Malawi, an education and girl’s empowerment organization that helps high risk children in the Dowa district.
Rise Malawi provides food for her during the school day, connects her with a sponsor that helps pay part of her school fees, and even allows her to live in their dorm for girls—a project aimed at keep young and vulnerable girls out of the villages where rape and marriage coercion are terrifying realities.
Franklin, also, received sponsorship from Rise a couple years after Rose succeeded in the program. However, there is no boy’s home yet. He was staying with their oldest sister and her many children, but space was growing cramped. So Rose, now seventeen and on the road to a new life, took odd jobs to save money to buy supplies, and she built herself and her brother a home.
Franklin himself handmade the bricks, while Rose mixed cement, stacked, and mortared them together. Rose told me that the house has only collapsed once, due to a terrible wind storm, but the rebuilding wasn’t so hard. She also told me of plans she has to build a shower room so that Franklin can have more privacy when he bathes.
I’m sitting in that home now with a nineteen year old Rose. I thank God for her, refusing to allow the shadows of evil in her story spoil it, and I feel a fierce pride for her.
Rose is everything I would ever wish a woman in this world to be—smart, kind, resourceful, and empowered. She found herself shoved into a deep pit of poverty the world dug for her and demanded she lie down in. Oh, but she did not lie down.
Rather, she rose—with help from some of the most extraordinary Christians I’ve met on this earth— and she became a more than a conqueror.
And now Rose is about the graduate the Malawian equivalent of high school. She has grades high enough to sit for her national exams, the scores of which will determine if she’s allowed to continue her education at the college level.
After visiting her home, she and I walked through the village behind the others, Franklin leading the way and chatting with the rest of the team.
We talked about her future. Yeah, she told me, she’s worried what the extra expenses for college will mean, but “God has done many good things. I thank Him. He will do more.”
And that’s all she has to say on the matter. Fear, where is your power?
After finishing college, she wants to be an accountant. Her hope is to move out of the village quickly and start a better life elsewhere. And once she’s saved enough money after that, she wants to visit Chicago, USA.
I’m telling her about my family that lives in Chicago when she gets a little shy and asks if she can ask me something about America. I tell her, yes of course.
“I have hear of these places where you buy flowers. All kinds of flowers, all in one room and you pick and buy many types. Are these places real?”
A bit confused, I explain to her flower nurseries and flower shops where, yes, you can buy and see many different types of flowers. The glowing smile on her pretty face bewilders me until she says, giddy, “this is the place I want to see in America most of all.”
Given everything I’d seen and heard that day, I’d done okay that day in the “not bawling my eyes out every five seconds” department, but the flood gate broke and I bawled.
Holy Spirit granted God eyes for a moment to see her through my tears as he sees her; wholly innocent and a daughter whom he loves deeply. Of all the things she’s experienced, of all the hurt her heart could carry, of all the times she could’ve been harmed, she is still innocent, still seeing the world as a child, still dreaming dreams of beautiful things.
I tell her she’s going to see those many flowers someday but, in the meantime, I point to the daisy-like yellow flowers that grow all over Malawi, I tell her to look at the yellow flowers. “Every time you see these, see God smiling at you. He loves you. He loves you so much and wants you to know how proud he is. And me, Rose, I’m so proud of you.”
Rose nods and hugs me — offering me comfort (oh how I am loved!)— and all I can think of is the word God spoke to me so many months ago in Cambodia: “Hold her like Jesus would”
I do, like she’s precious and with pride in my heart and trying to let love flow directly from my soul to hers.
I had far too little time with Rose, Franklin, the other students, and the excellent staff at Rise Malawi. Our visit was brief, but a twenty four hour period of my life where I felt God stretching me to new places through every conversation I had.
I carry Rose in my heart and I ask you, when you see flowers this week, will you pray for Rose and the many girls like her, precious women with beautiful dreams? Let our prayers be fragrant to The Father, a beautiful reminder to him of his conquering daughters.
_______
If you would like to help the students I worked will all month at Youth Care Ministries, please visit: http://urbanpromiseinternational.org/our-ministries-malawi/malawi-youthcare-ministries
Additionally, If you are interested in helping girls and boy, like Rose and Franklin, through Rise Malawi please visit: http://urbanpromiseinternational.org/our-ministries-malawi/malawi-risemalawi
*Name have been changed to protect identities
