On day three of my trip in Libertad one of the local girls at
VBS came up to me and told me she recognized me. She asked if I’d been there
before and I said no, so she proceeded to introduce herself to me. Her name was
Jamylee Rubio and she is 11 years old.
We got to talking and made a connection right away, she seemed to really
be drawn to me so we ended up spending the whole day playing together. It
stayed like this throughout the week, spending most of each day together. One
day, we were sitting talking and she asked me what my life was like. So I told
her the basic things… family, school, friends, etc. Then I asked her the same
question. And with all honesty, I can say that this girl has the hardest life
story I have ever heard in my entire life. It was just one heart-wrenching thing after
another. As she spoke her face filled with pain of acceptance for things that, at
11 years old, I could never even dream of experiencing in my life. I promised
her I wouldn’t tell anyone some of the things she told me, so I can’t exactly
share them on here…
Just know
that we talked, we cried, we hugged and held each other, and by the end of the
conversation she was asking me with desperation in her eyes if there was any
way she could come to the U.S. and live with me to get out of her situation in
Libertad. “Can’t you help me? Can’t you please take me with you? I will do
whatever it takes… I will get my visa. I will work. I will behave and be good.
I won’t bother you too much I promise!” Man was this painful for me. After
hearing all that she had told me, I was already in shock for a lot of reasons.
Then, to respond with “I’m so sorry Jamylee, but I can’t do that“ to her
desperate plea… I felt almost as trapped as she was.
What do you
do in a situation like that? How do I hold so much painful, yet confidential
and incredibly serious information in my one and only brain? Can’t we just have
another brain set aside, for all the painful things that we don’t want to
accept…don’t want to remember… don’t want to face?
How do I
sit there, after a conversation like that, and go on with my usual ways of
thinking? Thinking about such trivial things like how I couldn’t wait to be in
the A/C that weekend, or how I was excited to spend my week off on the Island
relaxing and having fun. I just couldn’t anymore. Here was this little
girl…she’s eleven…and THIS was her life. There was no escape at the end of ten
days. There was no hope for the future through a good education when she is
failing all her classes because the emotional trauma she went through this year
has messed up her ability to focus. And her abusive mother won’t buy her school
supplies so she doesn’t even own a backpack or one notebook. There is no hope or
support when not even one person believes in her, is kind to her, or tells her
“it will all be okay” because they blame her for all the things that have gone
wrong in their lives.
Where is
the hope when her drug-addict father is expected to die in a few months or even
weeks from AIDS and her family has no money to take her to the doctor, so her
eye problems are getting worse and she is slowly loosing her sight more each
day? When some people in town are sick and twisted, allowing unthinkable things
happen to eleven year old girls that should never, ever happen to anyone... when
she is afraid, lonely, lost, and it’s not even safe to walk through her own
backyard.
Yet there
she was. In front of ME. Somehow in my crazy hectic life I came from Seattle
Washington to Libertad village Belize, 3,650 miles away, on the right day at
the right time and by fate or the hand of God was now in the midst of a girl
hanging on by a string for her life. So what do I do? What would YOU do?
All I know is that I couldn’t live with
knowing these things and not taking some sort of action. Small as it may be, at
least I could try and be the one person to ever speak some love into her broken
little heart. To tell her that it isn’t her fault. That she IS loved and she is
important and she is beautiful inside and out. To buy her all the school
supplies she’ll ever need and tell her that there is hope if she tries her best
next year to be first in her class and redeem herself. That education is
everything and if she succeeds now, I will find a way for her to get money to
attend high school because her parents can’t pay for it and so she wasn’t even
planning on going. I will write her letters, send her encouragement, and pray
for her every single night that she may one day feel the childlike joy every
eleven year old girl deserves to feel.
She is just one young girl, and I am just one
person. But I know that we were placed into each other’s lives for a reason.
She told me that she has spent years praying every single night for help… and
then we finally showed up. Maybe the whole reason God called me to be in Belize
this summer is because He had this meeting planned all along. Maybe, the life
of one young girl will now change forever because she finally has someone to
believe in her and tell her that she CAN achieve her goals and get out of this
mess…
And maybe I
will be blessed even more in return. To see the potential that we as humans have
to be as strong as this girl. To open my eyes to the important things in life. And
that, if we are faithful servants and we truly believe, God will answer our
prayers the way he is doing so for Jamylee. Maybe not always how we expected or
wanted, but He makes all things work together for our good. At the end of the
week, she presented me with a gift. It was a simple piece of paper with a
drawing on it of her favorite flower. On the note she wrote, “Sannon I
love you. You are my best friend I ever met.”
This is why
I am here. These are the things I want to live for. And after an encounter like
mine and Jamylee’s… we will never be the same.
Love,
Shannon
Amazing. Made me cry.
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