Preservation

This morning the text of the message came from Psalm 121.  I take a Romanian/English parallel Bible to church with me and after reading the Romanian with the congregation, I read the Scripture in English.

I read words so very familiar, "I will lift up my eyes to the hills..." Beautiful words.  On I read to verse seven. 
I paused. 
I stopped. 
I read again. 
I thought. 
The message from the front didn't penetrate my mind. They were good words, but I couldn't hear.  I could only hear verse seven.

"The Lord shall preserve you from all evil.  He shall preserve your soul."  

And I thought of the sweet, beautiful girl sitting next to me, Essie.  How did God preserve her life?  She believed in Him as a small child.  She walked with Him.  Her life remained pure before Him.   And then a trusted friend kidnapped her and sold her abroad.   Forced to use drugs and prostitute herself, she was robbed of every dream she had in life. 

When she escaped, the TV news broadcast her story and everyone in her village and church knew where she had been and what she had done. They all became her judge.  No longer Essie, she became the woman wearing the scarlet "A". 

Her hopes and dreams were gone.

So as I read this, I pondered her story.  God in His still, small voice spoke to me.  He did preserve her from the evil.  He preserved her soul. 

I'm not a scholar of Greek, and I won't debate Bible translations.   But these words, as they were translated, screamed at me this morning.    

"God shall preserve you from all evil.  He shall preserve your soul."  There remained a promise for her in these verses.  They did not mock her pain.  They gave hope to her pain. 

I moved closer to Essie and shared with her the words God was speaking to me. 

I had no answer for why this happened in her life.  I would not say that God allowed this as the plan for her life.

BUT I can know that God preserved her. 

Right now everyone in Moldova is busy preserving.  We preserve vegetables and fruit, which are in abundance now, to eat in the winter.  If we simply set them on a storage shelf, they'd be rotten in a week, but preserved, their goodness will last until next summer when new vegetables grow again.

The Lord spoke the same for Essie.  Although forced into a very dark place, seeming so far from God, He preserved her life from the evil.  He preserved her soul.   I do not understand why this happened to her, but I do know that God was there, walking with her, preserving who she is.  She is not rotten or bitter.  Of course, she is filled with sadness and hopelessness, but she is still so incredibly sweet. 

When she came into the home, I immediately saw the difference in her.   Every other girl comes in hard and cold.  She came in soft and warm.  She appeared hurt and sad, but the light of who she is still shone through.  She had a sweetness I had not seen in new resident. 

God preserved her soul. 

I like this translation because some translations say that God will keep us from evil.  Or it seems that they God is a celestial guard who stops everything bad in our lives.  When we believe this, we must question why He didn't keep Essie.  Did He fail? 

No, the world is full of evil, and she is a victim of sex-trafficking.  BUT God preserved her.  Her soul is still His.  I see hope in these words.  She never turned from Him, and He never turned from her. 

Please pray for Essie this week. 

She is not sure that God still wants her. 
She is not sure she is worthy of Him.
She carries heavy guilt for a crime she did not commit.  

Pray that she can believe that He never left her side. 
Pray that she will know that He will give her a crown beauty for the ashes in her life.
Pray that she will understand that she is still an oak of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor.  
Pray that she will understand that God has preserved her and that He will heal her pain and make her new once again. 

Broken Hearts

I have three daughters biologically.  I have several more by virtue of Freedom Home. 

Ali* began first to call me mama.  The other girls at the home joined her.  Most have not had a mama in a long time.  Most haven't known a good mama.  Ali's mama died when she was around ten years old.

Ali has had a very hard journey.   We see times of great victory and times of such defeat.   The past few weeks she has worked to make life horrible for every person in the home--residents and staff.   She made it known to a few people that she wanted to be so bad that Andy and I would kick her out of the home.

So today we sat to talk.  Again.  It went no where. 

I told her I would not kick her out, but that she had a choice to make.  She would either began to work on things like schooling, parenting, and living or she would make the choice herself to move out.  Not doing what she needs to do is making the choice.  

After the conversation with her and a bit of time hugging on all the rest of the girls in the home, I came home.  Tonight I'm weighted with a burden to pray for her.  I talked with our director, who did have another conversation with Ali after I left, and it went well. 

But I'm still burdened for her. 

She can't trust.
She is bound by fear.
She needs God to deliver her from her past.
She needs to totally break free from a negative relationship.

I have friends who have children who are adults and have walked away from God. The pain in the lives of my friends is intense.  They pray.  They weep.  They ask God to bring their child back. 

Tonight I'm weeping for the one who called me Mama, my "daughter".  I love her intensely.  I love her because Christ loves her. 

I love her because she is worthy of love, no matter her actions.
I love her because she is a child of God, made in His image. 


He longs for relationship with her. 
He longs to heal her hurt. 
He longs to help her trust.

Will you pray for her tonight and this weekend?  Will you pray that God will help her start anew and that we will see radical change in her life and being?

There is a song with a line that says, "Break my heart for what breaks Yours."  Easy to sing these words.  Hard to live them.

Tonight my heart is broken for Ali.

Sweet Dreams

Today I had the privilege of sitting with a newer resident in the home, Mary, and hearing her story.   Her story came out in the midst of her pain.  Last Thursday she surrendered her life to Christ and then the nightmares began each night.

She shared how these nightmares are really not new, but have come each time she's wanted to change her life for the better.

When I talked to her about the evils of trafficking, she stopped me saying, "Trafficking isn't the only evil that has happened in my life.  In fact, it may not even be the worst.  My whole life has been ruled by evil people."  Wow!  This is a life I cannot even imagine.

She thought that maybe if she could just be better, she could change things in her life.  So I began to talk to her about people in the Bible who came to Christ in their sinful states, and Christ took them just as they came to him.

What shocked me was that she knew everyone of these stories.  Years ago, when she was in an orphanage, she had been given a Bible.  She knew the Bible incredibly well.

And I realized that although her life has been filled with so many bad things, God has been right there with her.  Theologically, I don't really understand this.  I don't understand how someone can be mistreated for so much of their lives, how they can be raped, how they can be trafficked.  I don't understand how the evil in this world can take them there, but I know we serve a God who is so amazing, and he cares for them in each of these places.

I understood that God has been holding Mary for so many years and that now she has the chance to hear of him and to understand his love for her, walked out in the lives of the staff at the Home.

Please pray for Mary.  Pray that she will have sweet dreams.  Pray that Christ will set her free from all the bondage of the past.  She wants so much to be free.  We prayed for her to be free.  Please join me in praying for her tonight and all this week.  Pray that God would give her sweet, sweet rest, without any nightmares.

Thanks for believing with me for her sweet dreams.

Neighbors

This week the neighbors on both sides of the home have begun complaining about one thing after another. They both have always made complaints and usually they have some validity. We have tried to comply.

The neighbor to the right didn't like our dog, Jack. So we built the fence higher to give him the extra protection from the dog jumping into his yard.

But this week he called the police saying the women in the home were partying and drunk at 2 a.m. They were all sleeping, but how do we prove that since the police didn't come until the next day? Show them the trash that is empty of alcohol bottles?

Our office is on the left side of the home and it is extremely hot in there so this week we installed a small air conditioning unit. The neighbor on that side complained that it made too much noise (these are not the old noisy type of air units!). There is no more noise from this than a fan would give.

Please pray for us for favor with the neighbors. We know we just need to keep loving them and offering them kindness.

On another note--concerning the training that we had at the end of July with Rebecca. The training went very well. Thanks so much for your prayers. One thing we are finding as a staff is that God wants to work as much on our lives as the lives of the women in the home. Many of the staff need to find real healing through Christ to be able to bring the healing to the lives of the residents. So continue to pray that God will take what we've learned and make it go deep into our lives so that we can then offer healing to those in the home.