For months she had shyly come to the door with her sweet babe on her back. She finally came in one day and we were fast friends. She told me that the babe wouldn't eat and that she was worried. Finally, in a place where I often felt inadequate...something I know about. We talked. We figured out the problem.The babe's eyes danced lazily and shut in peace. In Liberia you don't just become friends...you become family. I had a new sister after that day.
It was months later. Her husband was our house guard most days, but with refugees in our backyard his monotony got broken up by a job working along the border. Neither of them looked over thirty, but in retrospect I realize they were probably much older. Liberians never look their age. We always joked that if you saw someone that looked old you should just assume that they are old...ancient even. I don't know how you manage to look young in a land that wears it's people so hard. It is their secret grace I suppose. This young looking couple had more than that sweet, lazy eyed baby. They had a whole brood of girls at home.
This particular day one of the protection staff brought her to the door of the office. Her eyes shy, but with a pool of hurt dancing just beneath. She reminded me of months before when she would peer around the door without coming in. She came in and the story came out. The story that sticks in my head...keeps me awake at night...keeps me asking how I can raise a daughter safe in a world that isn't.
They had left their daughter, just nine years old, in the house. Daily work called and in Liberia there is no daycare, no convenient after school programs. A boy had found her and used her. He had taken what was not his and stolen innocence that can't be returned. Left her broken and tears streaming on the floor.
I didn't know what to say. This mama didn't know either. She just stared. We asked if we should go to the border, 6 hours by Land Cruiser, and get her husband. She shook her head no. What father wouldn't want to know? What father wouldn't see red over his daughter's innocence ripped away? Why did she shake her head no? Why?! We told her that we needed to take her daughter to a safe house. Have her examined by a healthcare provider. Report the incident. She agreed silently, apathetically.
She stared. She stared blankly. She just stared.
We speak metaphorically about giving voice to the voiceless. I sat in front of the voiceless and I didn't want to say something.
I wanted to scream it.
I wanted to scream.
I wanted to stand on the tallest soapbox I could find and yell about what had happened. A primeval yell of injustice about a boy, because no real man does that to a little girl, who is walking around while this little one can't.
She just sat there. I couldn't fathom it. Didn't she want to scream? Didn't she want to yell? Then I realized. This is a rite of passage here. It had happened to her too.
There are statistics that say during the 25 years of civil war over 80% of women were raped or sexually abused. That is 4 out of 5. If this happened in America we would riot. I realized how different we were in that moment. How far apart my life from hers. This was the type of thing that happens to some in America, but in Liberia it is what happens to most.
A year and half later I'm driving home down paved roads. Radio on. Grocery bags full. Baby girl in the backseat. My mama heart drifts to her face in my mind's eye. Baby strapped to her back. Her brown eyes not unlike my own daughters. I pray that she is spared. I pray that both our daughters are spared. I pray that this sin drenched world be redeemed. The sooner the better. Oh, Kingdom come.
She doesn't have the faith to hope for better. She has never known better. I dare to hope better for her.
Would you join me in hoping for better for women and girls in Liberia? I've realized in the time since living this story that this need to scream out loud about this injustice is a privilege that I bare for those who don't have a voice. It is burning in my heart today. I needed to tell the story. I needed to let you know about this story that creeps into my head even in the happy moments. It keeps me falling on grace. It keeps me going back to the cross to say, "How long, oh Lord? "
Thousands of women around the world don't wonder if they will be raped or sexually abused. They wonder when. Please take a moment to pray and ask how God would use you to stop this in your community and around the world.
Read about what Equip Liberia is doing to bring healing to women in Liberia.
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