Never far from home...

I am away but the struggles going on in Philly are still close to me, this one especially. I got a devastating phone call from Trish yesterday and don't even have the words for my pain. I feel horrible being so far away, I want to be there for D when she needs both Trish and I the most. I plan to write her a letter later today, I love this girl SO much and have grown really close to her over the past year. Here is Trish's blog describing what happened...


So, other than the up and down chaos of the camp situation, it appears that my week has been pretty good. And, it has been. However, this post is one of the most devastating for me to write. Today around 1:00 p.m. I got a phone call from one of our God's Girls. She was calling to tell me that last night she was caught by her father about to have sex with a 13 year old boy. She is 12. I was speechless. I still am. The story has changed several times and I think her embarrassment started to take over. Originally she was claiming rape, but now admits it was consensual. Praise the Lord they were caught before they had gone too far, but just barely. She likes the boy and really wanted him to like her. At 12 she decided that this was the only way to get him to like her. She is devastated. She is embarrassed. She is hurt. The situation is a complicated one. The boy was a friend of her brother's who is very involved with our church. The girl, D, is very involved as well...as is her brother and MANY of her family members (5 of our most solid teen guys are a part of her family). So far there has been no retaliation toward the boy. I pray that it stays that way. His story is different from hers and I still don't know exactly what happened. What I do know, however, is that there is a 12 year old girl that is so desperate for love and acceptance that she was willing to give herself away for even the tiniest hint at love. I know this is a huge struggle for a lot of women. The struggle to be loved is a fight every girl fights, and too often they accept the poor substitute of lust and passion for the unconditional and never ending love of Christ. I know she is not the first to fall into this trap, and she won't be the last.It will always hurt to see this happen. Carisa and I have always said that if any of our God's Girls get pregnant as a teenager we will be devastated. We know it will probably happen someday, but that doesn't make it easy. Even if it happened 20 times, it will never be easy. This was the first time for us. We are devastated. We are heartbroken. We weren't prepared for this (I don't think we ever could be). She is only 12.

Please pray for D and for us as we try to love her the best we can and help her through this. The boy involved is also a boy we are close to and have known for years, so our hearts break for him also.