February 21st

Wednesday has rolled around again.  As is custom, cooperate has come up for the parent visit.  Phil, our director usually uses this time to tell us what he's been up to and today he informed us that we will actually begin training to house formerly trafficked girls.  Our goal is to be open to receive girls in early March!  That is just days away!  Talk about this has gone on for months now, but until this point it has seemed more like a far off dream.  This program will be completely different from the one I currently work with.  From the sounds of it we haven't come to a consensus on how exactly this will work. 

Along with the announcement, Phil was telling us some statistics today.  Sadly most believe that a girl who has been in the sex industry for more than six months is "unrecoverable".  Personally, I think God might have some different things to say about that!  To focus on girls beneath the six month mark excludes a great deal of girls. It is estimated that 100 girls are introduced into the sex trade per month.  The youngest domestic girl was found to be 11 years of age and once a girl enters into the life, her life-expectancy is cut in half! 

 

Ugh, how I hate staff meeting days!  I find it agitating to be honest.  Lately it has become an opportunity to dish the dirt about how the "other" shift--aka my shift is not comparable to the golden shift, which just so happens to be my boss's!  As is custom, corporate is up for the parent visit. 

The soft scent of rose petals and fragrant water fills the room.  The door is closed.  Through it I hear the girls arrive.  I close my eyes, anticipation rising, and envision Brasil.  For a moment I am there, small candles lighting the pathway to an upper room where I will wash the feet of the JOCUM staff and girls.  This is where the tradition began.  I lean down, cup my hands in the water and pour it over the first girl's feet.  Tears fall and walls tumble.  The presence of the Lord overwhelms.  I remember it as if the moment was still present.  Standing now with my ear against the door, I pray this night will offer much of the same opportunities, while presenting some unique in itself!  Eyes still closed, a smile curls my lips, I press play on the music, then take one last look around and open the door.  Tonight is princess night!  One day, long ago, at a youth camp, I was showered with the wonderful message of being God's child--a woman of royalty, chosen, redeemed, and adopted into God's own family.  That night something in me shifted and I entered into a covenanted and intimate relationship with my King.  Now, as my girls enter into the the accent lighting of the rose showered lodge, I have the opportunity to crown them as daughters of this wonderful and merciful King, and to bring them into his courts!  I watch the enchantment in their eyes as the music carries them off in a dance.  Something of a little girl arises in a woman who is crowned.  As the girls take their places and the words of Ezekiel 16: 6-14 are read, I see the child awake and though crowned, she stands in the tattered garments of a woman who has fought the many battles of a short, but broken life.  Some are victims of tragedies beyond their choosing--parents lost, innocence stolen.  Some stand in the shame of ill-conceived choices. 

I call for a volunteer and among the hands one girl stands out among the rest  Like the girl in the passage, she has given herself to many in pursuit of a love she will never find in men or the things of this world.  Her worth is small in her own eyes and her wounds are deep.  As she takes the seat at the front of the room, I speak softly and allow God's truth to pour over her through this selfless act---I wash, dry, and lotion her feet.  She takes a rose and the word pure feels real!  She can feel it in her soul, an acceptance that wasn't there before. Sweet grace captures my heart and I realize how blessed I am to be chosen this night as God's ambassador.  Now comes the challenge of truth.  I ask the girls to take a turn around the room where truth echoes out of the scriptures posted---beloved, cherished, princess, daughter, chosen, purposed, pure, made new, rejoiced over, etc.  They take their time, some girls pausing longer with some words than others.  Truth is hard to receive, when you don't feel it.  I see stories surface and hang in the silence.  Truth stares down the lies of many years.  Some girls mouth the difficult words, some write them, some stare in wonder or question in disbelief, some cover their vulnerability with a cold shoulder and simply return to their seat. 

A last simple gesture solidifies the challenge.  A small flower placed on each girl's toe will serve as a reminder of this night for many nights to come.  I'll never know what happens after tears dry and the words written or questioned on this night are tucked away.  I hope she remembers that she is a princess, a beloved daughter of the King! She's beautiful, whole, spotless, and perfect in His sight!  I look at my own feet.  The flower reminds me, I am His, His very own! 

“‘I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put sandals of fine leather on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments.  I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, and I put a ring on your finger, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was honey, olive oil and the finest flour. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD.- Ezekiel 16 9-15

A Trip Home
        Strapping on a seat belt for a long drive, boarding a plane, or boarding a ship, no trip seems charged with excitement without them.  Above vacations, or trips to foreign lands, I love the feeling you get when you are going home!  Unusually, I was excited about this trip far before I packed a bag, boarded a plane, or even bought a ticket.  Since the day my father dropped me off and I watched him be driven to the airport, with the feeling that I was truly on my own for the first time, I looked forward to December.  I looked forward to seeing family, friends, and my professors as we celebrated together my completion of college.  Perhaps more than anything I longed to return to Little Five Points, Atlanta where my family could experience a place the Lord had proven to have need of ministry and thirst for truth.  Throughout my four years of college God entwined my heart with the streets of that district and with the hearts of its people.  Through joy and through tragedy my heart only grew in the knowledge that God's love is great for these people and that I was there to serve! There is no place more dear to me than this. 
        The plane ride homeward was interesting.  A man in his thirties found a seat next to me.  He was entertaining, comical.  He gave a bit of a lecture on relationships and his career and left me with his card and number.  How funny!  Connections were slow after that and I found that I would not make it to Atlanta until well after dark.  That did not change my excitement when I saw the beautiful cityscape.  There was so much excitement that I couldn't contain myself.  The woman next to me must have thought me crazy!  Exiting onto the streets off that plane, I was home!  There were my family and with them, despite the hour we went to the streets of Little 5.  While it was not the visit I had hoped and not one person within my family could feel why this place was of so much importance in my life, I knew.
         I walked across the stage that weekend.  I received my diploma and visited friends.  I reconnected and said goodbye for now.  But, more than anything I left a ministry to return to another.  It was a busy whirlwind of a trip from which I returned to my girls with the nonchalant comment that I had spent the weekend in GA.  CA is a new journey, I have walked from the streets to the mountains, from one home to another.

Christmas:
        The girls are wishing for their first White Christmas as we decorate the tree and prepare for upcoming visits.  Discovering the tiny village, that would pail in comparison to the world my mother spreads across the pool table each year, makes me miss home.  This will be my first Christmas away.  That almost doesn't seem possible.  Most of the time I don't realize how far I really am from home.  A holiday can quickly change that.  Though I've just spent a weekend with my family, I will miss them still. 
         Christmas Eve I plan to spend with them by phone, but it will not be the same.  I pack up the car with the packages that have come in the mail.  I wrap them all, making creative usage of my single roll of wrapping paper, and I stack them as if they were beneath Grandma and Grandpa's tree.  As with every year we sing carols, we open stockings, which I pretend to unpack, and we take turns youngest to oldest opening gifts.  At the end of the night, I ask my parents to carry the phone up to my room and tuck me in.  I dream of Christmas day with my extended family.  I join in their laughter, share in their hugs, smell the cooking, hear the stories, and play the games.
         Christmas Day comes with no snow, but the girls hardly notice.  When I enter the dinning hall its bustling with activity.  The table lined with Christmas stockings is surrounded by eager girls trading their new things for one another's as if they were on the floor of the new york stock exchange.  I wonder if large families across America look this way, I'm sure my father's sisters probably traded a thing or two in their childhood.  Who knows, maybe they still do. The picture is quite comical, the day packed with candid moments, laughter, and many games.  I see girls smile that have never before.  We are so blessed!  Though I am not home this Christmas, I am so fortunate to have this job and to be a part of my girls lives!  In all it is a good day and we rejoice in the birth of the one who sets everyday with purpose, every moment with mercy!