It was a Wednesday.
We drove through the brunt orange earth mist flying up around us. It was April, the supposed rainy season, but we were in a drought. No rain. No water. The roadside showed it – the banana leaves, the brick houses, the mud homes all coated in the loose dirt.
It was afternoon. We had woken early, gathered ourselves and our belongings, and drove to the district offices.
She was 11 and ran away from her grandmother’s home, the place she had been staying. Her mother brought her to her father and her father to his mother. Like musical chairs, but with a young girl. The mother and father, they argued over infidelity. The father claimed she wasn’t his; he would not care for her. And the mother struggled because he had another woman. The solution was to drop her, delegate the grandmother responsible. The girl, stuck in the middle of crossfire. She claimed abuse – word slander from her grandmother; mistreatment in the form of impartiality and lack of care. They say she walked 18 kilometers. 18 kilometers just to escape the place she called home.
They brought her to us, with no other place to take her, until they could do their investigation and find a solution. They said four days. April 6th was three weeks. Her face hardened in the back seat as we drove through the dusty orange roads.
We were bringing her back, brighter and lighter than when we had met her. Her eyes were dim the day she arrived on the back of a motorcycle and her white dressed stained murky. She wore no shoes. But three weeks later, filled with memories of hugs and laughter; of new friends and a safe place, her eyes sparkled with joy and a glimmer of hope. She had met people who cared for her, who want to see her succeed, who love and support her; a place where she was welcomed and wanted. She prayed with us and we for her.
We arrived, with the community development officer of our district, at the home of her father. They welcomed us - her father and her stepmother. We sat in a circle and talked of solutions. They were counseled to care for the girl, the father’s daughter, and accept responsibility of her wellbeing. She, indeed, was his daughter. He claimed the house was too small. The house was too small. But is that any excuse for not taking responsibility over your daughter? She was 11 and would not return to her grandmother’s home. She longed for her mother, but her mother, too, fleeing responsibility of the one whom she bore. Tears welled in her once bright eyes. Perhaps it was the agony of being seen but not wanted by the people who were innately supposed to want her.
I looked into the eyes of the children playing around our circle of grown adults. Curiosity. Laughter. Wrestling. The little ones carrying the littler ones. Those running with sweets and running their small bodies into the legs of their mothers. The sweet innocence maintained.
We stood to leave, the storm approaching. The village chairperson reassured us he would monitor the situation, and the community development officer would do her part to keep accountability. They agreed to call the mother – ask her to stay with the daughter, for that is where her heart desired, nestled into the love of a mother. We sat in the car and finalized the paperwork as the raindrops began to trickle down the windows.
The rain come, slowly and then all at once. The windows of the car leaked as water poured and lightening neared. We moved a few feet forward and were abruptly stopped. The car halted atop a median of grass. The more we attempted to move forward, the deeper the tires sunk in the dense mud. We waited for a break in the rain but the rain outwaited us. The downpour continued and the men in the car got bathed by the storm as they inspected the vehicle.
When the rain lightened, the village members gathered around the car. They brought their hoes and their shovels; big logs and helping hands. They dug. They pushed. They strategically placed stones and branches and logs. The car tires struggled to spin. The time was dusk, coming to 7:00 pm, and we were hours away from home. They dug the whole median till their shovels touched one another from opposite ends. The engine revved, the men pushed, and we prayed.
Lord all for your glory and good purposes.
And I saw her, standing in front of the car where I sat. The remnants of rain dripping off the cloth wrapped around her shoulders. My heart ached to say goodbye, but maybe even more than that, my heart ached for the careless and unjust. The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is indifference. And my heart so rightly ached over the indifference and the complacent ingratitude. But these aches, they beg a deeper question and a harder answer:
How do you help? How do you love? How do you empower? How do you welcome?
And how, how do you take action and walk in meaningful and intentional ways so not to enable destructive behavior or negate responsibility?
The story is not finished; the questions left unanswered.
Her name is Lamula.
She is 11.
She's the color of sunshine, bright and gold; with a soft warmth radiating from within.
And she is loved. She is wanted. She is strong. She is powerful. She is brave. And she has a home – a place she is welcomed and warmly invited to even if it is not the place she stays. She belongs.
And there is One, the One who cares for her more than our hearts could ever comprehend. And He settles the dust that is stirred in our hearts as they ache for answers to our toiling questions.
Lord, all for your glory. And all for your good purposes.
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