A good day

Yesterday was a good day.  There is a little girl here that I have just really been hurting for.  I won’t mention names but I have really become attached to her and now her mother.  Her mom works as a prostitute.  In America, when we think prostitute we think of a woman standing on a street corner waiting for “clients” to come by.  Here, a lot of prostitutes work in bars.  The “clients” come in order a drink and then order sex.  The women lives in a room behind the bar and she just takes him back there to her one-room house.  

The little girl’s mom lives in a place like this.  She sells beer and herself.  As I mentioned earlier, the mom lives behind the bar-so that means the little girl lives behind the bar where the men go and she sleeps in the same bed that her mom uses with these men.  I have literally lost sleep thinking about the little girl living in a place like this.  A lot of the children I encounter here live in tough situations but this is the worst for me to accept.  

I know that the mom has chosen this job because at some point she had no other way to support her daughter but it makes me sick to think of the little girl living there.  I have horrible thoughts about some disgusting man turning on the little girl.  This is why I lose sleep.

The mother has absolutely no education.  In fact, just a month ago she started kindergarten.  That’s right, kindergarten.  It is next to impossible for her to find a job here because she can not read or write.

I don’t know how to solve all of their problems, all I know is I have to get the little girl out of this environment.  Two weeks ago, I spoke to the mother and asked her if she was able, would she like to move out and she said yes.  She said she used to be a Christian but she can’t know because she is a prostitute.  

I told her that if she was willing, I would find her a new home and I would pay the rent for her.  She is worried about how she will afford food for her daughter.  I told her that we would try to find a job for her, somehow.  But she wanted time to think about it.  I didn’t know what there was to think about but I agreed to give her time.

Yesterday, she told me that she would like my help.  She said she still doesn’t know how she will make a living but she wants to get out of that environment.  I told her I didn’t have all of the answers right now but that with God’s help we will figure it out.

I don’t know how this is going to all work out.  But I know I have to try.  This typically isn’t my way of helping.  I realize that throwing money at a problem doesn’t always fix it.  And agreeing to pay someone’s living costs until who knows when may actually make them more reliant on help instead of giving them a new chance.  And who knows, she may turn back to prostitution but I have to take a chance.  After all, Jesus took a chance on me.