The stories of the girls’ pasts are ones of tragedy.  The first girls who came to live here are two of six children their mother has had during her many years of work as a prostitute.  Like many of the parents of our girls, she was unable to care for them and they were living with alcoholic relatives with an abusive track record. Another pair of sisters who arrived shortly after had just witnessed their dad, in a drunken jealous rage, shoot their mom.  Their mom died and their dad will be in jail for the next 20 years.

We just received two more sister-pairs.  One is from an extremely poor neighborhood on the outskirts of Bogotá.  The older sister (7 years old) was helping her mom sell candy and pencils to passengers on buses.  It’s nerve-wracking to just ride on one of those buses, much less make a sales-pitch and collect money for 12 hours a day.  They still didn’t make enough money to get by. The last pair to arrive came from the countryside.  To get to school, they had to walk along dirt roads for two hours, each way.  Their mother worked during the evenings plucking chickens in a factory, leaving the girls with her boyfriend. When she found out that it wasn’t safe for them to be alone with him, she had to choose between her daughters and her boyfriend.  The girls left, he stayed.

One girl was living with her grandparents after her own parents deserted her. They never sent her to school nor made any steps to educate her during her 10 years of life.  She now suffers from a learning disability.  Another girl has burn scars on her face, hands, and feet due to a gas stove accident.  Her younger sister didn’t survive.  The mother calls occasionally, promising to visit, but has shown up once.  Yet another mother has left scars all over her daughter’s body from punishments dealt out with wooden rods.

These stories are heartbreaking, yet God has been faithful.  Through his tremendous love, He has provided a refuge for these little girls so that never again will they experience such pain and loneliness at the hands of those they should be able to trust.  They are learning to become children of God:

How great is the Love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called Children of God!  And that is what we are!!  (I John 3:1)

For this reason, our hope and prayer is to welcome many more girls into this home.  The pastors of our church continue to listen for the Lord’s direction and search for those in greatest need.  As long as our faith in God remains the priority, this will be a place where He works out His miraculous redemption.