Sometimes I have moments where I am overwhelmed by God’s
love. This is one of those moments. Nothing significant has happened. I am just
being. Sitting I feel God’s love flow through my entire body. Sometimes we
make God too complicated. It is simple. He loves me. I love Him. I give Him my
life. He will take care of the rest.
This is the kind of simplistic love we wanted to share with
Zodwa. Zodwa is an eighteen-year-old girl who sells her body
in order to survive in Swaziland. We were able to spend the night at her house loving on her
in a way she has probably not known since her parents died.
When my teammate Ali and I went to her home we thought she
couldn’t speak any English. God surprised us within 5 minutes when we could
hold a simple conversation with her. Jumping at the chance, we started telling her how
much we really love her and how much God really loves her. While she was quiet a lot
of the time, I know that she was soaking in God’s truth.
We brought some food with us and it didn’t take
long before she was digging in. As we munched on sandwiches and pretzels, we wondered
what path brought her to where she is now. Her story is one of pain that all
too many Swazi’s have had to endure throughout their lives. She still lives in
the small concrete shack that her mother built when she was a child. One
morning when she was ten she woke up to a normal day. Her mother cooked her
breakfast and she left for school. Upon returning home that day her
life would be altered forever. She was all alone in the world. Zodwa’s mother died that very day. All her siblings left, some lived in the city and some were just gone. At the age of ten, she was left alone to fend for herself. She began to clean houses in order to make money to barely survive. For 4 years, Zodwa tried to delay the inevitable. However at 14, she had to make a choice, that to this day she can’t admit, in order to stay alive. Her body was now for sale.
Several times during the evening, yelling came from her neighbor and was returned by Zodwa. . She told us she was telling
her that she had company. Later, Pastor told us that she was telling her
neighbor, Big Mama (her boss), she could not go to work that night. Around eleven, as we got ready for bed, we heard a knock on the door. My heart literally jumped because I thought it was a customer. It ended up being her
“cousins” coming over because they were hungry, or that is what they told us. Ten minutes after they arrived, a guy was yelling from outside. One of the
girls went outside and was talking with him for a while. Pastor told us that
the girls are also prostitutes and they were coming over to try and get Zodwa
to go to a customer. We were in the middle of Zodwa’s real life. A life no teenager
should have to live. Zodwa should be worrying about homework and plans for the weekend instead of worrying about how to put food on her own table and how she
was going to survive.
Swazi culture is one of shame and hiding the truth. Zodwa’s
story is no exception. She is embarrassed of the life she lives and wants to
hide the truth. I asked her if she could do anything in the world and have her
dream job what would it be. She could not even answer. The concept of dreaming
seemed foreign to her completely. That broke my heart. Regardless of the your lifestyle, everyone is allowed to dream.”Tell your dreams to God,” I told her ” He hears them all”. Nothing is too big for our Lord to
accomplish. I have dreams of Zodwa having a new life. I have dreams of Zodwa
going back to school. I have dreams of Zodwa falling crazy in love with her
true Father. These dreams can become a reality. Join me to pray for a girl who
people avoid eye contact with, for a girl who nobody truly cares what happens
to her. Join me in prayer for a girl who is not forgotten because she is loved
more than she can even imagine.
