‘Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves’–Proverbs 31:8
My sister & teammate, Cori, just wrote this blog about our week working at a home for disabled/abandoned young women. I hope that you enjoy her blog, pictures & video!
We have been going to a girls home maybe 30 minutes from where we are staying. We were told before going to be careful, that many of the girls have been abused physically and/or sexually, many have some kind of mental handicap, etc. So we needed to be careful not to make sudden movements around them or to just whip out our cameras and assume that it’s okay. Needless to say, I was pretty nervous the first day we arrived not knowing what it would be like.
But what I found was different than what I expected. I thought that it would take awhile to form relationships. I thought they wouldn’t necessarily welcome us at first. I thought it would just be hard to know what to do there.
We arrived that first day and almost immediately the girls opened their arms to us and wanted to know us. They were so excited. They were quick to welcome us, to hold our hands, to talk with us, to get to know us, and even to dance with us.
We went inside and were given the low down on the place. Currently 31 girls live there and around 17 of them have some kind of mental handicap – some, of course, more serious than others. Those without a handicap live there basically because they have nowhere else to go, and most of them have jobs during the day so we didn’t meet a lot of them.
During the days that we were there we did many things with these women. They were quick to show us their place and where they sleep. One day Jessica taught them about “Ana”, a young woman in her 20’s and how she takes care of her body. After that we helped the girls wash their hair, painted their fingernails, and Kimi even gave them haircuts.
Another day we painted with them with watercolors. It was awesome to see their creativity come out; particularly the girls with handicaps were excellent painters. I loved just sitting and watching them expressing the creative beauty God has given them regardless of their “handicap.” It was truly beautiful to witness and I could have sat there forever.
These things were all great, but it was also very difficult being there for a couple of reasons. The girls home is pretty under-staffed, so they are not fully getting the help that they really need. One girl, for example, has pretty bad epilepsy. One afternoon she was having pretty bad seizures so Gretchen and I and 2 of the staff workers took her to the hospital. Another girl tends to like to run away more often than not, so we have been trying to figure out why that is and to make sure that she doesn’t hurt herself.
One question that frequently ran through my head while being there was, “how do these girls have hope?” It appears that on days that no one comes to visit them all they do is just… chill. They sit outside in the hot sun or in their rooms. Maybe they watch TV. But that is pretty much it. Every day, just kind of… sitting.
If that were me, in their situation, would I have hope in my life? As bad as it sounds it is difficult to answer that.
