Progress with the Girls

I just finished reading the blog of a good friend of mine and realized I haven't been doing a good job keeping up on my own.  Partly its because I have been really busy and partly because updating my blog tends to be the last thing on my weekly checklist.  However, a wave of inspiration just hit me and I am going to ride it out as far as I can.

Growing

The girls have been in the orphanage (or as I like to call it, The Beehive) for 2 months now.  My last blog talked about what type of backgrounds these girls were coming from and the 180 degree change has had its growing pains.  Being 5 years old and living with 3-5 siblings you learn how to survive, not just physically but emotionally as well.  One thing each of these girls has in common is that they all have been neglected and crave attention.  Many of these girls lived completely unsupervised with their siblings and thus picked up bad habits of manipulating, lying, or stealing to survive.  Well, to put it lightly in some instances, there has been several adjustments made and many more that are still in the process.  Despite the challenges these girls continue to grow and learn that their old habits wont work or be tolerated in the house.  Even in the short time many girls have really made progress and its so encouraging for us to see progress being made.

I want to introduce you all to the girls but would like to do it by spotlighting a couple girls at a time.  Because we are talking about change I would like to introduce two girls who have come a long way since they first came.

Yeimi (pronounced Jaime) came with her sister the first weekend we took in girls.  She was one of the first girls in the house and came from a family of 7 with 5 siblings and a single mom.  When filling out paper work I had to help her mom complete the forms because she couldn't read.  Not only did the mom not know her own birthday or those of her 6 children but she didn't know how to spell their names.  She must have been 14 or 15 when she had her first child.  When Yeimi (7 years old) arrived she was really hard to understand when she spoke due to a serious speech impediment.  Being one of the youngest in the family she was a spitfire from the very beginning.  Hitting and shouting was the only way she knew how to get attention or get her way.  Recklessly running around her new large house, she would bulldoze anyone in her way with her little 60lb body and when corrected she would spit out some sort of jumbled reason why it wasn't her fault.  Now, fast forward two months, 40 days of speech therapy and countless timeouts.  She is one of the more obedient girls in the house and has turned into quite the delightful affectionate sweetheart with not just the volunteers in the house but with her fellow housemates.  When another girl is crying in the house she is one of the first to console her and tell the adult in charge that such n' such is feeling sad.  This is the same girl who was close-lining her roomies two months ago.  I remember the first few days playing with her and when I said I had to go she ran up and hit me and as I turned around to say “we dont hit”, I was shocked  her to see her stick out her tongue and flip me off.  I almost busted up laughing. That was her in the beginning, and though she continues to have the occasional outburst she is doing much much better.

Mayerli (sister of Yeimi, 9 years old) arrived with her little sister the first weekend.  While Mayerli wasn't as out of control as Yeimi, she was a typical older sister and had a real mean streak of bossiness.  She was quick to pound on or socially isolate anyone who didn't go along with her program.  We would try to rationalize with her why you cant treat others like that, but we might as well have been talking to the stove.  Like several of the other girls, she had assumed a motherly role for her younger siblings due to her mother's absence in the home.  Its not hard to imagine why she acted the way she did.  However, like her sister, she has made big steps in thinking of others first.  She has been more agreeable to doing her homework and obedient to house rules as well as showing more grace to the other girls.  

Little by little, small victory after small victory these girls are learning how much they are loved and how to love others.  As I stated in a past blog, this is so much more than just offering food and shelter.  It is taking a little girl out of an abusive environment that only offers an early pregnancy, prostitution or life of poverty.  It is showing  Yeimi that she is loved not just by us at the orphanage, but by God.  From that foundation, Yeimi learns that she is capable of loving others.  She will go on to get a College education choose a profession and raise her own family on the vary principles she is learning now.  While there are only 14 girls (with 6 yet to come), that is 14 less in prostitution and 14 more with a college education.  What's more, their impact will reach farther than any of will live to see.  I ask you the reader and your family to be praying for these girls, that God would continue to change their hearts, that they would learn how to show love to others, and lastly that we would be able to provide for their needs (physically and emotionally).