Hey Everyone,
My computer has been down for about a week and I just got it back today. So if you sent me a message in the last week and didn’t get an answer, please re-send your message to me and let me try again. Thanks.
It has been so hard to wait to tell you my GREAT news. I was at some missionaries’ home to celebrate Thanksgiving Day and I received a call from Angelica from my house and she said that the girls were at the house and I needed to hurry home. I just fell apart sobbing at the shocking wonderful news. I FLEW home as fast as I could (so thankful that our road was now fixed and I could go about 30 miles an hour down it). I flew out of the van and they just ran into my arms and we all fell on the ground laughing and crying. It was the sweetest moment of my life, I believe. I had had such a hard time even going to celebrate Thanksgiving. Every time I ate, I would think of my babies starving. But decided that was not the plan of God to have me just shut myself down to others that I needed to encourage. He sure is faithful and did such a wonderful thing and on such a perfect day for me — I will never ever forget to praise Him for that special Thanksgiving day!
The girls are thin but are eating great now and are so happy to b e HOME!! Eidy has changed so much for the better. She was always so difficult and stubborn and disobedient and, as young as she is, she seems to have been very humbled. She is so quick to obey and we are enjoying her more than we ever did before. Cokie is still after almost a week, very insecure and clings to me quite a bit. But of course, I don’t mind that a bit!! ha. They were mostly healed up from some of the bad sores on their hands and heads. I started them on an antibiotic for that right away and they also started parasite medicines. We will do the worm medicine once they have finished all of this other stuff. We had to de-lice them as well and they are pretty much back to normal. The little girls love their new room. Eidy and Cokie do not sleep together well though so Cokie sleeps with Blanca now and they are all so happy in their room for just the “mujeres” (“women”, as they call themselves). ha.
My friend Rosy (who I lived with for 3 years in Jocon) was the one that brought them home to us. She is such a precious friend and said that she was so busy finishing up with the end of school year (she is a teacher) but she could not rest with me worrying about the girls and knew she had to do something. She prayed all day long on Wednesday until she believed it was time to go confront the father of the girls. He readily agreed that the g irls needed to return to Destino and they went together to meet with his mother, the grandmother who is so controlling in this situation. For the first time in his life, Gerson stood up to his mom and told her the girls were his children and he was sending them back to Rhonda. She got furious. She was so drunk and shaking so badly but right there and then she kicked Gerson and his pregnant girlfriend and her 1-year old little girl out on the street. He knew that I would send the two month’s rent money to him though and just stayed in another frien’ds house until Rosy could return with some money for them. Rosy said that she is going to find the other grandmother as soon as she is finished with her school work and start getting the custody changed to that grandmother so that this can never happen again to us. Gerson has found work now. The police (one policeman) only looked for him one day and then didn’t try any more so he is a free man in spite of raping that 13-year old little girl. Rosy said he was denying it but has teeth marks on his face and both arms. He is such a mess but I just praise God for giving him enough sense to send his children back where they belong.
Rosy told me a wonderful thing while she was here too. She had been talking about the g irls with another teacher in the village a few weeks ago. It turns out that the teacher had been a friend of the girls’ mother and was with her when she died last year. I had asked people from Jocon if their mama had accepted Jesus Christ so that when the girls asked me where their mom was, I would be able to honestly tell them that she was in heaven. But everyone told us that she was not a believer and I was so sad to think that these little girls would grow up in Christ and never meet their mom in eternity. Well, the teacher told Rosy the whole story of the suicide of their mom. She said that Dunia had taken not one, but TWO pills that cure the beans and are very poisonous. It usually only takes one pill to kill someone within hours and she wanted to make sure that she would really die quickly. Instead, she could not die. After the first full day and she was still living, they took her to a clinic in Yoro. That night a man came to visit her in the hospital and shared about the love of Jesus Christ and that she needed to receive him as her Savior and trust him to forgive her sins. She inphatically told him NO ,she wanted no part of Jesus Christ. She went another entire day and could not die still. The next night another Christian man came to the hospital and told her about Jesus’ love for her. This time, she asked Jesus to save her and was so joyful and decided she really wanted to live, but died within 15 minutes of receiving Christ as her Savior. I am so excited now to explain to the girls where their mama lives and exactly why she can be living with jesus now. That was such a huge blessing to me and will be to the little girls as they grow up.
I cannot thank all of you for all the many faithful prayers over the last month to have the girls come home. We are still so excited to all be together again.
We are ready to celebrate Jesus’ birthday now. We put up our Christmas tree yesterday and they are so excited about the lights. They got me up at 4:30 this morning and wanted to have the lights on in the dark. it was so pretty. We have some lights that have different patterns of glowing and at one point, they go dark and then light up again in different rhythms. All 7 of the little ones were in front of the tree this morning, blowing and timing it so they thought they were blowing out the lights. It was so funny. I didn’t get to see all the kids when Eidy and Cokie first came home but I heard it was quite a reunion. All of them went running down the road to greet and hug them. Even Jonathan was so excited to see his little buddy, Cokie, back again.
I’m sure I must have other news but today I cannot think of anything except to get out this good news to you and so I guess I will cut this off for now. Thanks again for your faithfulness in praying for us. God is faithful and has taught me so many lessons during this hard time. I never had the empathy of mom’s and dad’s that can do nothing except pray and depend on God to work. It was good for me to understand that kind of reliance and being fully cast on God alone for something that was breaking my heart. Thanks for continuing to pray for the girls to recover from everything and to become completely secure once again in their home at Destino.
Love to everyone of you in the Wonderful grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
Rhonda
