Accompanying a girl who has lived a life full of vulnerability and high-risk situations often looks like this:
Sitting at the table and having only you speak, long silences that reflect the life of a girl who has lost her voice, expressions and attitudes shaped by the deep fear of trusting again.
During many of our first outings, I was the only one who talked, and this created an inner struggle with my expectations: “Am I doing this right?” “I’m not good at this.” “She doesn’t want a relationship with me.” “We’re not going to connect.”
However, I stayed—remembering the first words of the social worker when she told me about this girl: “She cannot experience one more abandonment.”
With my trust placed in God, respecting her pace, and showing up with unconditional love, little by little the bond began to form—not only with me, but also with my husband and our extended families.
Then came moments I treasure deeply: the day she chose to tell me her life story, the first time she came with us to church, our first birthday celebrations together, important conversations about the battles in her heart, and our shared need to know God—among many others.
As we approached our first year of knowing each other, she would constantly—and excitedly—tell us that she wanted to spend the night at our home.
After thinking it through as a family, we decided to take that step.
That night we prayed with her, and when it was time to sleep, she opened her arms toward me, asking for a hug.
That hug!
My heart was pounding and I had a lump in my throat, thinking about how many nights she must have gone to bed without a single hug.
That hug symbolized so much to me: “Here you are safe.” “Here you can belong.” “Here you can trust.” “You are not alone.”
The greatest longing in a young person who has lived their whole life in protected or institutional care is just one thing: family.
That sense of belonging to a family has been transformational in this process.
And we continue walking with her—on a road that is not linear nor perfect, but with the firm conviction that God has united us. As she now says: “I always prayed to God for a family, and now He has given me one that is not by blood.”
Projects like Destiny bring us closer to living the gospel in a genuine and real way. And hasn’t it been the same for us?
We, being deeply in need of God, full of darkness and sin—God embraced our misery and turned it into mercy and forgiveness, and then adopted us into His family.
“See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children, and that is what we are!”
1 John 3:1a
So if you are interested in becoming a big sister or supporting Destiny in any way, be encouraged! Extend love and hope to those who need it most.
“It’s easier to ignore the orphans before you know their names.
It’s easier to ignore them before you see their faces.
It’s easier to pretend they aren’t real before you hold them in your arms.
But once you do, everything changes.”
—David Platt (Radical)
Andreina (Big Sister)