Thando.
Thando means love. It’s interesting when someone’s name holds one of the greatest secrets of the world…yet they have experienced the exact opposite.
This young woman has a story that will make you sit and stare into the space around you wondering how you can help, when all you can really do is listen.
I’m going to share it with you, because she told me I could, but I need to preface, that Thando is NOT her story.
She is a girl who loves Jesus. She sees God as her Father, when she didn’t have one the way she should. She is beautiful because God made her that way. She is soft spoken and all smiles. She loves her picture taken and is talented at making all sorts of things. She loves to learn and beams after receiving hugs. I only know her as well as you can know a person, especially one with walls up, after a month, but I know that God knows her deeply.
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She is 14.
When she was 13, she was raped.
She was raped by a man in her village.
When she found herself pregnant, she tried to go to his home and family, but they wanted nothing to do with her.
She went to her own family and was rejected in the same way.
She says that is when God provided. She met a man that helped her.
He knew about Sandra Jones Center and found a place for her here.
They had a court case to press rape charges against the man.
He didn’t show up.
After a long while he was arrested.
More justice was found here than most situations.
She stayed and found a home at Sandra Jones with other women who are, or have been in her situation.
In November, 2016 She had her baby.
At 14 years old she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.
Perfect. He is, hence his name.
Since that point her family has come to see her and him.
Just seeing them brought her so much hope.
Her family has agreed to raise Perfect.
Since that point she has been going to school and learning and laughing as a 14 year old should.
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I wrote it the way she told it, simple and without dramatics. Her story is hard, but I am confident in how God is using the redemption in her story.
At the end of this month I had the privilege of holding Perfect. He is so small and beautiful, and soundly slept on my chest. He looks just like his mother.
Later that day, as I sat across from Thando; she asked me about him. She knew that he had been there while she was away.
“Did you see my baby?” She looked at me expectantly.
“I did, and I held him. Thando, he is beautiful.”
She simply grinned and looked at the ground. I continued to describe him to her, and she just continued to grin as I told her how chunky everyone had told me he was getting.
“And he looks just like you.”
She got up walked around the table and gave me a hug.
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This whole month has been about practically loving these women, and Christ could not have bound my heart to them any more tightly than he already has.
