This past week, I hosted a four-day, four-course cooking class for ten girls from a local non-profit serving the area’s underprivileged girls. The girls each had a story laced with one tragedy after another, but there were two girls- Vicky and Jan – whose stories made me cringe and cry. The first day the director dropped the girls off at our church, I asked her if there was anything I needed to be aware of so that I could best serve each girl. She pulled me aside and whispered.
Vicky is a teen mom and will need to pump in about an hour.
She was groomed and raped by her stepfather since she was SIX years old.
She is fourteen years old. The dark secrets of her life would have remained behind the four walls of her home, that had become her prison, if not for her protruding belly that alarmed her teachers at school. On our last day, I sat with Vicky for a while. As though all of her, except for her lactating body is trapped in her six-year-old self, she tells me her story in a soft, shy six-year-old voice. Her son is eight months old, her stepfather is in prison, there are charges against her mother, and currently, she lives with her aunt and uncle. She recounts the tragic details of her life, while like any child her age, she stretches slime and smiles when I asked for a piece.
After I bid each of the girls’ farewells, the assistant director thanked me with tears in her eyes. She tells me I would never understand how much the week meant to the girls. For an example, she said… Vicky wanted to come to the cooking class so she could learn to cook for her son. The reason Jan was late this morning was only that she was determined to get here. She rode her bicycle in the ground pounding rain to get here. When she arrived, she was soaking wet. Thankfully, Zuri, my oldest daughter had an extra pair of shorts and offered it to her. Unfortunately, she did not have an extra shirt, so Janey remained in her wet shirt. It was small and tattered, squeezing her arm in two and sporting a large hole in the lower left side. I could see her pink flesh through the hole and when she moved about her small shirt rose above her navel, and her belly hung over the shorts. Jan’s mother abandoned her for drugs, her father was just released from prison, and she and her ten-year-old sister currently lives with an old town drunk who once dated her grandmother. She has nothing. Just yesterday, she squeezed her size fourteen body into a size ten shorts and when she arrived at the center, there was a slit down the middle, revealing her dirty underwear beneath.
Vicky and Jan’s stories were like sharp knives piercing the surface of my skin and digging into me.
When they left, a very faithful, always on time volunteer and pastor’s wife, Caroline and I sat in brokenness. We both had tears in our eyes. Jan is our daughters’ age. An eleven-year-old should have a mother, a father, a relative of some sort… but Jan had none. We could not help her in that regard, but we could help in getting her shorts and shirts that fit. Caroline, her daughter, my three kids and me drove to Target. We filled the cart with shampoo and conditioner, body wash, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, several shorts, shirts, dresses, headbands, and a backpack. Caroline and I did not want the other girls to feel left out, but we felt a strong urge to start with one – Jan. I called the director and asked if someone could walk Jan over to the church and when she entered the room, she was tense -her chest raised up to her chin from possibly holding her breath with fear. However, as our children presented each item to her one at a time, she loosened up. She hugged the body wash. She grabbed the floss, then in a small voice asked, why are you doing this for me? Caroline said because we love you, Jan. She hung her head and her blonde hair fell over her face. When she raised her blushed face up to us again, she said, I start middle school next week, and I didn’t have a backpack…this is my favorite color.
If you know a teen mom in your area, don’t automatically judge them as fast. Simply put, don’t assume their story. If there is a non-profit serving underprivileged girls in your community, volunteer a few hours, ask what their needs are and start simple: start with one girl or boy, one backpack of goodies at a time.
Start with one.
Kadine Christie
