Me and Silvia

        

I’ve blogged about Silvia before. She lives at Discover to Recover center. She is a sweet little twelve year old girl, but she’s had experiences that no child should have to go through. I went to visit her a few days ago and she was not herself at all. I hadn’t been to see them for a while and when I got there she went around the corner and disappeared. Usually she is always right next to my side the whole time I am there. 

I tried talking to her and she wouldn’t even smile. I asked what was wrong, but she wouldn’t answer. Later, I found her sitting behind the building crying all by herself. I brought Leila over to ask her what was wrong, but she wouldn’t say. We had to leave, so we asked her if she would talk to us if we came back the next day. She said yes, so today we headed out. I found her in the same place, right behind the building all alone. Again we asked her what was wrong and she burst into tears. She told us that she has been living at the center ever since she can remember and no one from her family has ever come to visit her or even called Patricia. They don’t live very far away, so we asked her if she wanted to see them. She told us that she didn’t because they didn’t care about her enough to visit her after all this time. We told her, the same thing we’ve told her every time, that we love her and that God loves her, but in the moment of sadness that really doesn’t do much to help. 

I didn’t have much planned for the day, so I took her into town with me to get some lunch. She was still sad, but she cheered up a bit because going into town is a rare occurrence for her. Her English is pretty good for a kid in the third grade, so we talked a little bit. I think it was good for her to be able to get out of the center for a little bit. I told her that now, I have more free time because things have slowed down for me so I will be stopping by the center more and I will be able to take her out sometimes if she needs to talk more. It breaks my heart that such a sweet little kid, has so much pain and brokenness because of the circumstances that she was born into.