Today Was Hard

Today was hard. Tonight my heart is heavy. 

We opened Amani House, a residential program for pregnant girls and young mothers, at the end of February. In the past few weeks I have become sister, friend and mother to these three twenty-year-old girls. We have laughed together as they practiced their English on me and I practised my Swahili on them. We have sung and prayed and eaten together most days. We have become a family.

Today Social Welfare decided that we must return one of them and her two-month-old baby to the abusive home that they came from. I held this woman-child close to me after she read the letter, her head on my chest, her weight resting on me as she cried.

When it was time to say goodbye, the five of us stood together, arms around each other, baby Shabani pressed between us as we prayed. I couldn’t understand all the words, but I knew what Upendo was saying through her tears because my heart had the same cry. Watch over Esta and Shabani. Keep them safe. Give them Your protection. We all cried. I didn’t want to let go.

I didn’t want to give Esta back to her abuser. I wrestled all day with it, despite the letter saying that I had to; despite advice from people older and wiser than me who assured me it would be okay.  And all day I tried to ignore the quiet voice saying, ‘Give her to Me instead.’ Oh but I didn’t want to! I didn’t want to give her to anyone. She was safe with me. She was loved and taken care of. For the first time in years, she had a family and a home. Upendo and I would be the mothers that this orphaned girl so desperately needed.

But I had to do it. While this situation is bigger than I am, it is not bigger than God. And so with my heart breaking and tears streaming down my face, I kissed Esta goodbye and left her in God’s hands.

Pray for Esta. And for the rest of us – for the two girls who lost a sister today; for Ruth whose fatherless baby grows steadily in her womb; for Saumu, who misses her family every day; for Upendo whose soft heart hurts for Esta even now; and for me, that I will trust God to keep the people I love safe, now and always.

xoxo,

-Hannah