through my eyes

As I prepare to find closure in the midst of a dream I don't want to wake from, I often find myself just closing my eyes and reliving the moments, the memories, the sights and the sounds of these past months.

Join me on my journey through my eyes. Nicole Chin just did an incredible job posting some of the images I will take with me forever from this beautiful country and beautiful people on my website www.thecallingvoice.com (you can also read a few of the stories I have writen.) Enjoy!

His daughters

 

"My daughter,

You may not know me, but I know everything about you.  I know when you sit down and when you rise up, I am familiar with all your ways.  Even the very hairs on your head are numbered.  For you were made in my image.

In me you live and move and have your being.  For you are my offspring.  I knew you even before you were conceived.  I chose you when I planned creation.  You were not a mistake, for all your days are written in my book…

My thoughts toward you are countless as the sand on the seashore.  And I rejoice over you with singing.  I will never stop doing good for you.  For you are my treasured possession.

I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul.  And I want to show you great and marvelous things.  If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me.  Delight in me and I will give you the desires of your heart.  For it is I who gave you those desires." 

As I sit on the floor reading these words to the girls who surround me I can’t help but pause for a moment, close my eyes, and let the words speak to my soul too.  Words of truth that we rarely hear amidst the voices that tell us different. 

"I am your greatest encourager, and also the Father who comforts you in all your troubles.  When you are brokenhearted, I am close to you.  As a shepherd carries a lamb, I have carried you close to my heart.  One day I will wipe away every tear from your eyes.  And I’ll take away all the pain you have suffered on this earth..."

I look up and into the eyes of each of the girls.  Five of them surround me - Samretta, Salimatu, Mariama, Adama and Debie.  They all turn away when my eye catches theirs.  But they don’t giggle as they often do when you ask them something about themselves.  They hear it, I can see it in their faces.

Heleen and I have invited the older girls in the neighborhood to come each Saturday for an afternoon of discovering the beauty in which we were each created as special and unique women and then using painting or drawing to reflect it.  These young women are all between 13 and 17 and have already lost any childhood innocence they once had. 

Women in this society are good for two things.  To cook and have babies.  While the culture and society is progressing towards women’s rights and equality the message is still so clear, so bleak.  It can be seen in the number of young, husbandless girls pregnant with their second or third baby.  It can be seen in the emotionless face, straining to carry a large load on her head up our steep hill, a baby on her back, calling out the food she’s trying to sell for mere pennies. It can be seen in the way these girls turn away and giggle nervously when asked anything about themselves.  Life as a women is hard in this country.  To live up to the roles you are forced to keep. Your value based on how well you can fulfill these roles in one of the most difficult economic environments in the world.

But today these girls heard a different message.  One of the beauty in which they hold.  We had them stand in front of a mirror and then paint self-portraits.  It is incredible.  They love it. 

We plan to do little art projects each week and put them together into a book the girls can keep.  A treasure they can hold on to, to help remember the sparkle they are in their Father’s eye.

Please help me pray for these young women.  That they would truly know their worth – not defined by this world but by their Father in heaven.  That they would gain new revelation of how they deserve to be treated and hold tight to this not allowing anyone to compromise them.  And that they would gain a deeper understanding of how beautiful and loved they are and learn to love and value themselves.

   Salimatu, Marie, Samaretta, Adama