Our "Almost" Girls

After members of the two work teams from Shiloh blogging for the last two weeks, it feels good to be in front of the computer screen again ready to type in a blog entry. (You might not know that considering I should have blogged on Monday and then meant to this morning and it is now 10:15 p.m. and I am just getting to it!) What I most look forward to when blogging is knowing that we are connecting with each other even though we are thousands of miles apart.

Only two days after the last Shiloh work team left, Victor and I were on our way to the state of Michoacan with the hopes of picking up four new daughters for our family!

Last winter, Fishers of Men held an Evangelistic Medical Mission Crusade in a small town in the state of Michoacan. While there, the team became aware of the situation of a single mother and her four young daughters, ranging in age from 4 to 11 years old. Her husband had gone to the U.S. years earlier and had suffered an accident which prevented him from working and supporting his family back in Mexico. The wife was left living in a borrowed hut and working, along with the girls, harvesting strawberries and other odd jobs in order to survive. The mother's love for and dedication to her daughters was evident, so we offered her the opportunity to come and work and live at Refuge Ranch, along with her daughters. In this way, she could provide for her daughters, but in a safe place where the girls could also learn and grow. However, she turned down that opportunity.

This past February we got word that that same mother had abandoned the four girls, who were then subsequently taken in by their eldest, 19 year old sister, who was married and pregnant. Well, last week we got a phone call informing us that this sister was about to have her baby and could no longer care for her younger siblings and was requesting that they come and live with us. Dr. Escamilla, a Fishers of Men crusade volunteer who is very familiar with this village and, particularly, with this family, travelled to Michoacan on Sunday to confirm the girls' situation.
We spoke with Dr. Escamilla late Sunday night who told us that the girls had since been sent to four different family members' homes, but that the entire family agreed that it would be best for the girls to stay together and come and live with us.

So, on Monday morning Victor and I hit the road with our four youngest children, Caleb, Ruth, Ana and Daniel, in order to lighten the load a bit here at the ranch. Nearly five hours later, we arrived in Michoacan and found out the the lawyer needed to sign the guardianship papers was not available until Tuesday, so we decided to spend the night. In the meantime, we set out with several of the girls' family members to round up the girls!

Our first stop was an uncle's farm out in the country. After waiting outside for over half an hour while family members talked inside, we finally met Liz, who is 12 years old, and Diana, who is 6 years old. They came walking down that dirt road with Victor, Dr. Escamilla and several other family members carrying the sum total of their possessions in a small white garbage bag. I have yet to know how to properly greet a child under these circumstances: "Hello, I'm your new mother" does not seem quite appropriate. So, I usually just make myself available and follow the child's lead. Both girls, as soon as they got to me, gave me huge, long hugs. As I was hugging them, I kept thinking: "I have no idea who these girls really are and they are going to be my daughters! I am hugging a total stranger, yet loving her so deeply. This feels like an awkward hug now, but someday I am going to give her a hug as she gets ready to walk down the aisle to get married!"

Liz (far left) and Diana (being carried in pink by Mariela) walking down the dirt road towards our van with Dr. Escamilla, Victor, Mariela (a Fishers of Men volunteer) and other family members.

Liz had actually been living in Mexico City with a distant elderly cousin for about a year, but that relative is ready to give her up and she was back in the village near her other sisters. Diana, like her other two sisters, had been living with their oldest sister, Nancy, until just a week previously when they moved in with other relatives due to Nancy's impending delivery of her first baby.

Liz (12) and Diana Karen (6) years old together in our van.

After getting into the van, we set off to find Blanca and Ana. We were told that Blanca was on the other side of the mountain visiting other relatives and that Ana was at another older sister's house. We decided to try the older sister, Alma's, house first. Upon arrival, nobody was home, so we drove several more blocks down to the girls' maternal grandmother's home. Lo and behold, we found nine year old Blanca there, but no Ana. Five year old Ana had been taken shopping that afternoon and had not arrived back home yet.

However, along with Blanca, we got to meet the other older sister, 17 year old Alma, who is also married and has a small baby. Upon finding out the reason for our visit, Alma would not hear about her little sisters being taken away and vouched that she would care for them, although she has never previously cared for them at all! Her reaction resulted in a phone call to the girls' dad in the United States who, although he had previously given his approval for the girls to be reunited and become a part of our family, now went back on that decision and told the aunt who was coordinating all of this to leave the girls in Michoacan.

Daniel, Diana Karen, Ruth and Ana enjoying corn on the cob together on the sidewalk as we spent several hours discussing the girls' situation with their 17 year old sister and maternal grandmother.

So, after over two hours of discussing the situation with many different family members, the girls were returned to the four different homes where they had been staying, including Liz, the 12 year old who adamantly repeated time and time again that she wanted out of the situation.

So, at 10 p.m. on Monday night, 12 hours after leaving home, we started out on the four hour or so drive back to Refuge Ranch, with our four youngest children and no new daughters. This was after having met three out of the four girls, having two of them in the car with us on several occasions and then believing that at least Liz would return home with us.

Ruth, Liz, Diana Karen and Caleb together in the car!

Victor wisely observed that the Lord had a plan in our going to Michoacan on Monday, although we are totally clueless as to what the plan is/was! Of course, we have thought of many different options and possibilities, but only the Lord knows what He is really up to!

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.

"As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9

We continue to pray for Liz (12), Blanca (9), Diana (6) and Ana (5). We can see many different ways that the Lord could continue to work in their lives and in ours, but we are all in His hands and are praying that His perfect will would be done in His perfect time!