Pray

This is something that Gracie wrote last week:

Cindy: It Isn’t Always Easy…

Some people are easier to love than others. Some people are easier to help than others. I find myself struggling with this at times, especially days like today. We have two girls living on the mission: Karla and Cindy. Both are 15 years old and both have been rescued from horrible situations.

Karla, who was abused severely and raped repeatedly by her father for more than a year and left pregnant with his baby, has embraced her rescue. She is a loving, doting mother to Alejandro. She studies hard in school, making academic excellence and wants to be a lawyer and rescue victims of violence. She accepted Christ and was baptized, loves the Lord and has fully decided she is our daughter and this is her home. She embraces God's ministry and is the first to help take care of others, as though she has been called by God to serve alongside us. It is easy to love Karla, and she freely loves in return.

Cindy, on the other hand, is more complicated. She has her good days and her bad days. Today is a bad day. Her history is awful. Since a small baby, she has been sexually molested by about every male member of her family, including her father. In Sept. 2009 she was raped by her cousin. Her mother has not given her any affection, verbally and physically abuses her, and sent her to live with her aunt in 2009. Cindy has some sort of mental damage. It is hard to get a diagnosis here and nobody ever bothered. Between the mental damage and abuse, she is emotionally and mentally a four year old girl. She was never sent to school. Mother says Cindy didn't want to go so she didn't send her.

I remember in 2009 when the rape occurred, the mother wanted to send her daughter to IHNFA because she was incorrigible and wandered the streets and disobeyed. The D.A. sent her to IHNFA in Sept 2009, her cousin was sent to prison until the final trial, and Cindy was forgotten by her entire family. For a year, no one visited her. Sept 9, 2010 was the final court date for her cousin. She cried on her mother's shoulder in the courthouse saying she wanted to go home. Mother didn't want her. The D.A. asked if we could take her so her mother could visit her more frequently since we lived in the next village. In four months, the mother has only showed up twice. She hasn't ever called to talk to her daughter. During visits the mother is aloof and shows no warmth.

Because of the sexual abuse, Cindy wets the bed, almost every night. She began switching mattresses and we had to take the mattresses off the two bunk beds in her room, leaving only the one for her. We bought a mattress cover, plastic, in Tegucigalpa and within 48 hours she had it torn to shreds. She cannot share a room with anyone because she goes through their stuff, steals it, uses it, destroys it, and most seriously, she sexually touches the other girls in her room while they are sleeping. She sexually abused Karla in the first nights here and we moved Karla out of her room. Then when Idalia was here, she went to Idalia's bed in the middle of the night and tried to touch her.

She also goes through spells where she exposes her genitalia to people. This past week, she went to the bathroom took off her clothes, sat on the toilet and left the door open knowing Lee would be coming out of one of the dorms and see her. Fortunately Karla saw this and prevented Lee's exposure. When I was in Choluteca, she was asking questions about Lee being alone in the house at night and if he would be sad sleeping alone and if the doors would be locked when he slept. We assume she was going to try and enter the house and go to his bed. Fortunately we always lock the house doors at night so no one can enter. The teacher, Tutti, stayed here at night during my absence in the refuge with the girls to be a female presence. Also while I was in Choluteca, she wore her pajama shorts and sat in a chair with her legs up and spread showing her genitalia to Tutti and Karla knowing Lee could pass by. She crudely talks about sex and body parts.

There are other things too. She has a fascination with sharp instruments. She steals knives, scissors, box cutters, etc and hides them.  She cuts up her clothes. Anything left on a table is subject to being stolen. Even chemicals are a problem. She drinks bleach, lice shampoo and any other chemical she can get her hands on. Everything is locked up. Lotion, shampoo, dish soap, laundry soap, bleach, medicines, everything has to be under lock and key.

Tuesday Karla left the baby's colic/gas/antispasm medicine on my coffee table in the living room. Cindy is not allowed inside our house. Lee was painting out back, I was out of town, Karla was visiting neighbors with the baby and Santos was occupied. Cindy snuck into the house, looked around, saw the medicine, stole it and drank it all.

During the last few days she has been focused on leaving to return to her mother. Tuesday she was angry because when they went to the pulperia to buy chips, she walked in front of cars and Karla yelled at her. She returned all her gifts, packed her belongings and said she was going to her mother's house. She said she was going to say we abused and Lee touched her. She went on a hunger strike and didn't eat supper or breakfast.

We got through that event but Thursday she did not want to study. She told Tutti she didn't need school because her mother was coming to get her. She told Tutti she wanted to live with her mother so she could find a man in the streets and have sex and make a baby. She told Santos her mind was telling her that she should not be living here, it is not good for her. (Does this mean she is hearing voices?) She had two psychotic type episodes in December. One morning she locked herself in her room and was screaming saying a demon was at her door trying to hurt her. Another day she came in crying saying there were insects all over her blankets. Today she told me voices talk to her at night.

She fabricates boo boos and illnesses to get attention. It got to the point where she was requesting so much medicine and was "cured" 5 minutes later that we did an experiment. We gave her vegetable vitamin supplements saying it was a special herbal pain medicine. 95% of her boo boos and illnesses were cured by this medicine within five minutes. If she came back in 30 minutes still hurting we gave her the regular medicine for her ailment. But she rarely did, she pretty much said that she was cured.

She does things to instigate others, like when we had guests, she put her radio on as high as she could at night so no one could sleep. She insults Santos, Karla, and Tutti. She takes her room apart each morning and soaks all the furniture with water and soap. She is afraid of the dark and turns on every light out back at night. When she is punished for bad behavior (loses permission to go out, or permission to watch tv, or sent to her room to think) she howls and cries and screams, says she wants to die, says no one loves her and she wants go home with her mother.

And this brings us to today. She refused to study today, said she was leaving. Said if her mother didn't come get her today she was going over the fence tonight and find herself a man.

She is so hurt and so confused -  she is a profoundly wounded soul. And so hard to love. I need to talk to her D.A. and her judge. I am concerned we might need a referral to the psychiatric hospital.

Pray that God continues to give us the strength and patience to love her and the wisdom to know what to do. Just because someone is difficult to love, difficult to help, does not mean we surrender. With God, there is no surrender. Only perseverance and victory.

Earlier in the day I received a prayer request from a friend. At 12:18 today Gracie called from Honduras. I had already been praying for her and what I knew was going on, but something hit me today after I spoke to her. To love people and to be thousands of miles away when they are in a time of need is very frustrating. All I or anyone can do in situations like that is pray. I believe that it is our duty as Christians to pray for one another. It doesn't matter if you've ever met the person. 1 Timothy 2:1-2 tells us to pray for all men. The Bible says, "I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peacable life in all godliness and honesty". The Bible also says in Psalm 145:18 that, "The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth". Lastly, Galatians 6:2 tells us to "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ".

Cindy is on the left:

My request is this: If you read this, please pray for Cindy. Also pray for Gracie, Lee, and Karla who have been living with her and doing everything they can do to love and help her. I learned today that Karla is so stressed that she is throwing up blood. She is also having nightmares. She is afraid that Cindy will do something to hurt her baby. Here are both girls (Cindy on the left with Karla on the right) and the baby on Christmas morning:

I don't have the answers to fix this situation, but I know God does. Pray.