A Fairy Tale Ending

We talk about seeing kids lose.  We talk about justice not being met. We hope and pray that one day it will all end. Yet so many times it does not.

 Over the last few weeks such a thing like this has been happening with Si and MJ. I fought, I cried, and I prayed over these kids.  I was not able to see any good solution to their suffering. Their story broke my heart.  Though the abuse was clear not much could be done since the mom refused to talk about the man in the house, or tell the truth about the marks on MJ and Si. I felt like once again I would watch kids lose, and I would spend the coming years praying them through years of abuse. 

Yesterday we went to Tent City for our usual feeing, but we took a social worker with us to again check on them. When we arrived they were nowhere in sight.  When we checked their house all the neighbors said the same thing:  MJ, Si, their mom and their siblings moved to a different province. A place far away from Tent City. A better place for them to be. The kids I had spent so much time fighting for were gone. I walked past the house they had lived in and saw the man the mother seemed to fear – the man who watched the kids and called them away from me.  In the same house stood the teenage boys who I had personally seen touch MJ inappropriately just a few days earlier.  The people who we feared were hurting the children were left behind.

Later that evening I sat thinking, processing the day. “They won.” I heard Him say.  He was right; they had won. They left the abuse they were handed. They moved closer to their dad. Their father would now be a bigger part of their lives. They might never get an education and their teeth might rot out of their mouths, but at least they have a parent who loves them, which is what many of the children here really need. 

Though I wish I had gotten a chance to say good-bye I know they are much better off now than before.

“You ended well,” He reminds me. God brings me back to the last time I saw Si. She turned to walk away like she did every time we began to leave, yet this time she called back at me. She didn’t know my name, but she knew how to get my attention. “I love you!” she said as she blew me a kiss good-bye. Though Si and MJ never knew my name they knew I loved them. I look back on that day and hope that in this new season of life they don’t remember me but remember the love The Lord asked me to show and know that God will fight for them through whatever happens next in life for them.