“I fear!” Faiza declared to me as we stood together barefoot and hands clasped at the shore line of Lake Victoria in Uganda. I hadn’t planned on swimming, but Faiza nor I had been to the lake before and we needed to at least dip our toes in.
It had begun with a Sunday walk with the children from Sudan and South Sudan staying at the Uganda Safe House; but it became evident that Faiza, I, and the others needed to do more than just get our feet wet.
As we moved forward “slowly-slowly,” Faiza saw she was safe and then with tremendous courage led me and then the other children deeper in to the cooling waters.
When we returned back home, I began hearing the reports from Bentiu, a village in the north of South Sudan. “Young men in military uniforms and civilian clothing raped, whipped and clubbed 125 women and girls as they walked to a food distribution site. U.N. officials and aid workers said Saturday. “What is happening since last week is indescribable. I haven’t got words for it”” an aid worker in the area reported.
This is the tenuous reality for all living in warzones and lawless lands, especially children and women—and even my young lake-friend.
Faiza was 12 when she was attacked walking home from Our Father’s Cleft (OFC) school and orphanage. She was carrying food for her blind and deaf father; her only remaining family in Sudan. When her small body was later found, Ezekiel Ayoub, indigenous director of OFC, was immediately contacted and intervened on her behalf. When it was later discovered that she was pregnant she was brought to Uganda to safely deliver her child in a hospital.
What is happening in the lives of these young girls and women is also indescribable.
Today Faiza and Baby Kaka Jane “Grace” (now age 1 year and 3 months) are thriving. They are happy, healthy, and on a road to healing. The impossible is made possible when the movement of HOPE and LOVE advance in our world. Faiza is learning and also teaching that when she is afraid she does not go alone. You and I have the privilege of lifting up the most vulnerable, like Faiza and Jane, to equip them for the journey ahead.
Lift Up the Vulnerable (LUV) protects, educates, shelters, feeds, encourages, and provides holistic healing to children and women who are at-risk to human trafficking and oppression.
Faiza’s daring hope is contagious and is transforming the world. This holiday season, Double Your Love, so that even more can be lifted up through the indescribable movement of Love.
Click on the link below to securely make your gift or send a check to our PO BOX and know your impact through Lift Up the Vulnerable is doubled because a committed family partner to the mission has been moved to issue a $100,000 challenge grant!