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| Birthday girls |
I have watched these girls grow up and they get more beautiful every year. Not just externally, but their hearts have been softening. It is my pleasure and blessing to be living here with these girls.
Sometimes we have set backs. WE have all been together for so long that when we have a girl leave unexpectedly, it throws us all for a loop. One of our older girls left this week. She was to graduate in about 5 month from High School. She had a scholarship to go to college from a precious couple who loved her like a daughter. The scenario of her leaving is all too familiar. Someone contacts them, and starts making promises. This time it was from the cyber world. The girls had to get an email account for school assignments. Over the years folks have written notes to the girls and have left their addresses. This girl contacted a couple. Long story short she is gone and we are all devastated. She is working with her family now at a mechanic shop and or selling bread. I talked to the mom and she said that she was going to have to work. I asked her if she could please finish high school, because it was already paid for the year. The mom said she could but she wasn't going to insist on her going. So the girls saw her this weekend at the school they attend and she was talking about going to the States "wet". That just means she is thinking about going with a group illegally, which upset the girls that are here and of course it upset me because I know more of the dangers of this kind of trip more than the girls do. Hopefully that is all there is to it, but even though she is gone, she still has the power to affect our lives. We want the best for her because even though she is gone from PTC, we still love and care about her.
Please pray for all of us here to be able to adjust without this girl. When a girls leaves to go to the university or if she marries, we celebrate and send them off in a high fashion and there is closure for all of us. When this type of things happens, there is a dread of what is going to happen. This is not the first time this has happened. Unfortunately, it hasn't always turned out to well in the past. When the well meaning people that make the promises can't fulfill what the girl thought was going to happen.
So they in turn feel betrayed 
and can't quite get their lives together afterward. I need prayer because I just get mad. I get to see the girls that are left behind crying and trying bravely to go on without knowing what will happen to their sister, who was with us day and night for years. I see the girls who leave facebook posts and they post that they are depressed, or feeling rejected, or sad. Or when you see them on the street and they are clearly not prospering. Or when they call you and tell you that they are so sorry that they left, and ask forgiveness, and even though it forgiveness is extended, it never is the same, and they don't come and visit even though you tell them to come. As a mom to these girls, who has cared over them while they were sick, bandaged their cuts, helped them with homework and laughed and cried with them over the years is quite heart breaking to be pulled away from us. Then I have to pray over my heart, my fears, my hurt, and my attitude, because it is not going to help me or the girls. But what is the worst, is to watch what happens with the girls. It is so very hard for the girls, who have been sisters for so long, who have bonded together, told their secrets and played together, danced together, went to school together, defended each other, prayed for each other, to watch this situation pan out.
The girl had a sweet quiet nature about her. She started doing things that were just not in character at all over the last few months. I thought it was "senioritis" but then she started doing things that were taking all of us by surprise. I would ask her what was going on, and she would just be silent. I called her mom and she came and talked with her and again, she would say nothing, This last girl shared nothing about the emails with anyone. She just said she was leaving. I told her nothing about this was making sense. She finally told me when I went to the States the last time, she contacted this couple. They wrote back and forth and the couple told her if she was ready to leave the mission they had a place for her. I told her that maybe she misunderstood and asked if I could see the messages. She told me she couldn't because the person got her email password and erased all of the messages thoroughly from her account. WE are all hoping for the best and we continue to pray everyday for the girl who left unexpectedly, but there is a huge hole in our celebrations, and in our lives not knowing what is happening with this girl. Well meaning people, who may feel like they are helping, don't have to hear the all my girls cry over the loss of the presence of that girl, or that sibling, that goes on for days and weeks, and months afterward. Today at the celebration, one of the birthday girls breaks into tears. I asked what was wrong and she said she was just missing her sister. Her sister left years ago on a promise. We miss them and it hits us hard, and that voice that taunts all of us is ever present to tell us that maybe we could have said or done something differently and she wouldn't have left.
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