One Saturday morning last November, we learned the story of Moses. A new king came to power in Egypt and decided that there were too many Israelites. He ordered that every boy that is born must be killed. One mother did not have the heart to let her child be killed, so she found a basket on the riverside and placed her three month old baby boy inside. Downstream he was found by the daughter of the king. She rescued the baby and took him as her own. The king’s daughter named the child Moses which means “I drew him out of the water.” Not only did the baby boy survive the king's edict, but he grew up in the king’s palace.
As we told the details of the story, I realized that the girls were not getting it. We tend to understand things better when there’s a visual around the Pearl House. Language barriers will get you every time! I got a big plastic bowl and put it in the middle of the room. Then I asked our smallest girl, Olivia, to sit in the bowl. I showed them our imaginary river with the bowl floating along. Then I went to the bowl, took Olivia by the hand and raised her up out of the bowl giving her a hug.
And that is the moment when I understood. That moment is when God made clear to me what He is doing in the lives of the Pearl House girls.
These young ladies were in the water, headed toward death, a death of some form. They were in extreme poverty, often going hungry, without basic needs. Without empowerment. Without hope. Without a dream for the future. But God has raised them up out of the water. He has taken them one by one and walked them out of the imprisonment that poverty so readily provides. And He is walking them into a life of safety, freedom, hope and light. They are truly daughter of the King.
To the God whose faithfulness never ends.
To the God who never ceases to recreate the lives of His children.
To Him we give all the praise. Amen.
