We walked into the girls home for the first time. I looked around and everything looked so normal. Ten children lived in this home who had been taken from their parents, taken off of the street, or taken from a different home.
Everything that looked so normal, was not so normal. There was hurt, brokenness, anger, separation, loneliness, walls that they put up and wouldn’t let you in, wounds, and so much pain that we didn’t even know about.
There was also love in this house though. These children had been chosen and taken out of the situations they were in and brought into a home where they were welcomed.
The parents in this house knew they couldn’t change what had happened in their past but they did know they could prevent it from happening in the next generation by teaching these children skills and helping them know what they experienced doesn’t have to always be that way.
My first interaction with Mia was cold. She was shut off and didn’t want to have anything to do with me. The other girls in the house didn’t want to interact with her and didn’t speak with her either. She had only been there for a short time and you could tell she was lonely.
I wanted to love her, I wanted her to feel like she belonged, I wanted her to be able to speak up, I wanted the other girls in the house to talk with her, I just wanted so much for her.
My team and I reached out to her. We talked with her, we invited her to play games with us, we painted her nails, we invited her to the pool, we included her, and slowly she came around.
Our last day, Mia was in the middle of the kitchen table smiling and playing skip bo with all of us. Her hurts from her past weren’t gone and we could’t change what she had been through. What we could do though was love her and show her Jesus through our actions.
The Lord is still working in her but in just a couple of weeks we saw so much transformation. I am praying big things for her future and that the Lord would continue to soften her heart.
