A Rough Life, Indeed
So we have welcomed a new girl, Sarmanca, at our Beauty from Ashes Home for Orphan Girls and I’d like to tell you a little bit about her.
Sarmanca grew up in one of the worst orphanages around, Cighid. Many of the orphans there died from mistreatment and neglect. As a teenager she came to Oradea to stay at a private foundation.
Soon after, she was married to a young man who also grew up with her at Cighid. Their marriage has not been a bed of roses.
Sarmanca decided to go to Italy to work for a friend. She was beaten, maltreated, and not paid a single dime.
Back in Romania, her husband got in with a new crowd of friends. He wanted to go live with them. Sarmanca did not agree to this. According to her, these new friends use drugs, have perverse sexual relationships among themselves, have beaten Sarmanca (she has wounds on her face), and are involved in rape and human trafficking.
Some of our girls saw Sarmanca at church on Sunday and told her to talk to us. She was living on the streets, sleeping in cars or at a homeless shelter at night, having been effectively abandoned by her husband.
We immediately wanted to help her. However, I wanted to talk to her husband. There are usually two sides to every story. I told Sarmanca to tell him to come by. I did not want to house another man’s wife without at least talking to him. But he has no phone. He doesn’t work. He spends all day long with his new “friends”.
Yesterday I told Sarmanca to go tell him that we want to speak with him. She told me that she is afraid to go over to these people’s apartment. She is afraid of being beaten (again), raped, or trafficked to God knows where.
However, in talking and interacting with Sarmanca you wouldn’t know all these things about her. She expresses a real desire to draw close to the Lord, after falling away from Him. This morning I found her reading the Bible.
She is smart and perfectly capable of learning a trade, working, and getting along in Romanian society.
I fear we will have problems with her husband in the future. I imagine at some point either he will want her back or she will want to go to him. Maybe we can help them. Maybe not.
But God has brought her to us and we have accepted her. We would ask for your prayers as we begin to minister to her.