Family.
It is a word familiar to all of us. We think of parents, siblings and extended relatives. For many it brings a sense of home and safety. For some it conjures up thoughts of discord and hurt. Most Westerners can anchor on a family--whether positive or negative.
Many of our girls at Freedom Home have never known family. Some never knew mother or father. Disease took their parents at an early age. Some did have parents, but alcohol addiction and family problems made the home miserable. Grandmas or aunts raised some of our girls, but they only put up with the extra child because they had to--it would shame them not to. Loving care did not exist in the home. State orphanages were left to raise several others.
Family is an issue little talked about in trafficking. Most articles written and studies done point to economic issues. These are easier to verify or site. Women go abroad, hoping for a better life, because they are poor. This is the accepted line.
While this may be partially true, the women are also hoping for love, for acceptance, for a place to belong. They dream of a family, and they follow the idea of marriage. They may not know the man well, but the dream of family makes them think there will be time later to get to know one another. That dream is shattered when, instead of a wedding, she is sold to a pimp. Strangely so, they find security in the "love" of a pimp who showers them with gifts along with beatings and abuse.
The sad fact we see in the women at Freedom Home is that, for the most part, the horror of life did not begin at the first beating by her trafficker or pimp.
It started with abandonment by a parent in childhood.
It began when a step-father or brother or neighbor raped her as a teen.
It happened when her mother died, her father remarried and her step-mother wanted nothing to do with her. The orphanage became her new home.
So they come to Freedom Home not understanding family, but desperately wanting and needing it. They come longing to belong and to feel loved.
At Freedom Home we become their first real family. We love them unconditionally. We care for them. We celebrate birthdays and milestones. We disagree at times. We care for them as if they are our natural sisters and daughters. We introduce them to a loving Father of all--God our heavenly Father. It is in this loving, caring and accepting environment that they begin to see that family can be different, and family can be good.
As believers, we have more than just our family of birth. We have a new family--the family of God. We pray daily that the women will understand their new birth into God's family.
Will you pray with us that the women in Freedom Home will understand this great family that God has given to us? Will you pray that He will help them to understand their "Abba" Father? Will you pray that they will understand that this family is real and safe? Will you pray that they find healing in the arms of a loving Heavenly Father through the hands of his daughters and sons who minister daily at Freedom Home?
