I tried to go to bed an hour ago I took a shower, cleaned my room, got in bed. But I can't sleep. I can not stop thinking about a couple of stories I heard today...
A young girl, abandoned by her parents and living with her grandmother was getting help from a teacher after school one day. He raped her. At age 13 this was her first sexual encounter. Her grandmother didnt believe her story, so she left to live with her uncle. Unable to care for her, he married her off and she before long was pregnant with her first child. After giving birth to her third child by age 16, she left because she was tired of being abused at home. Succumbing to the need to survive, she became a prostitute.
Next was the story of a young girl whose parents died when she was 13. She was raped by an ex-soldier on the street. She got pregnant at age 14 and dropped out of school to take care of her and her baby. She too wound up on the streets, selling her body in order to survive.
One young girl was found, gang raped, beaten and left on the road to die.
And the newest edition to our family is pregnant because her "client" refused to use protection. She is 13 years old.
Tonight I read through 12 more files on girls just like this. All with similar stories.
This month we launched a partnership with a Ugandan organization that rescues and rehabilitates child prostitutes. Its called Rahab Project and our vision is to restore hope in seemingly hopeless lives by taking these girls into a home and loving them with all we have. They no longer have to kill themselves in order to survive. We plan to house them, feed them, counsel them, educate them and love them as best as we can.
We have about 17 girls, the youngest in 9 the oldest is 24. They are our family now.
This business is heart wrenching. The more I learn the more disgusted I become with the atrocities people suffer. I cry with each girl as they re-live their past in order to share their stories. But you know what touches me most with these kids? Their resilience. I've shared with you guys already, how incredible my encounters with suffering people have been. Well it continues as I meet each of our girls and try to learn what it is that gets their hearts pumping, what feeds their faith, gives them strength, makes them smile. They are growing, and learning, and recovering.
They have hope - it oozes from their souls - and touches mine.
