The Most Worthy Rescue Mission

I can’t get Nandi off my mind.

One month ago, I went to visit this 10ish-year old little girl and her family, only to find a mildly distressed mama telling me she had run away… again.

So, we loaded up her mama, her auntie, their additional 5 children, and a couple of Nandi’s friends who knew where she was hiding, and went to go find Nandi. I brought her home with me that night.

Lifa was ecstatic to have a sister for the night. Nandi took two showers just because she could. And there was a 4-year old birthday party on base that night, so we had a pool full of laughing kids… Nandi included. 

We gave a ride home to a woman who lives in a neighboring community, and she said, “I know this girl.” Nandi had shown up knocking on her door one night at 9pm looking for a place to stay. The woman had called the police, but they dismissed it saying, “She always does that.” Another young woman from another community looked her over and said, “Oh yes, I know Nandi.”

People know Nandi.

But nobody knows her story.

Nobody knows why they know her.

I was beside myself the next morning when I got to make two glasses of chocolate milk and two plates of cinnamon toast for my two kids. On the way to school, I did my best to communicate clearly to Nandi that she was to go home to her mama’s house right after school. She got it. She said yes.

My Dwaleni princess and the king of the car

Playing in the car on the way to school

 And they all lived happily ever after…

I wish we were to that part of the story. I can’t wait for that part. 

But today, we’re still somewhere between the “Once upon a time…” that took place in the purity, nakedness, and perfect relationship in the Garden of Eden and the “Happily ever after” of when the fullness of His Kingdom comes.

We’re still looking for leaves to cover ourselves and trying to make life work in a back-and-forth, Hokey Pokey kind of relationship with our Creator.

Today I can’t get Nandi off my mind.

I went to visit her again a few weeks after she spent the night with me. Her mama greeted me by saying, “Where’s Nandi?”

Uh-oh.

I told her I didn’t know and asked when the last time she had seen her was. She never came home after school that day. The mamas said they hoped she had been staying with me. It was easier to hope that – even though they knew it wasn’t true. Now the truth was in the yard sharing brownies with them, and they had to face it. Nandi had been gone for weeks.

One more time, we loaded up and hit the road. Nobody seemed phased. House after house with no luck. We never found Nandi that day.

We had to have Christmas Eve without Nandi.

Because she’s The Runaway. It’s just what she does.

Heads shake. There’s a generalized, “tsk, tsk, tsk.”

And people worry about the stress she’s causing in the family and community.

She always runs away.

And nobody knows why. It’s just what she does.

Yesterday we went to visit her again. Her mama came bounding out, cheering, clapping, dancing, and hugging all over me. Nandi came home on Christmas Day! I knew it was true because she was wearing the new shoes I had bought for Nandi. But Nandi wasn’t there.

They gave me a detailed explanation of where Nandi was… in SiSwati… so I just got in the car and trusted they’d tell me where to go.

Our third trip this month to find Nandi.

This time we went far.

A 15-minute drive. Then crossing over a major highway. Then entering a dirt-road, tin-shack community I never knew existed. To the end of the road, the back of the community, and into a bunch of warehouses.

Big warehouses full of beds.

And children. 73 children.

And a couple of 20-something caretakers.

Nandi came out with an unsure smile but with a sparkle of a little girl who was being rescued and redeemed. For the third time this month. She ran into her mother’s arms. They hugged each other deeply, and then her mama quickly pushed her away and sent her over to me.

I thought our hug would never end. And I never wanted it to.

You know how much I like words – especially adjectives – but there are no consonants, vowels or syllables that I could craft together to give you even a picture of what this place was like. Not if it’s good or bad, dark or light. It just felt like another world. I tried to ask so many questions. Conversations went something like this:

“Some other white people dropped her off. We think maybe her mother is dead.”

“I’m here with her mother. I’m friends with her family. But I need to know if she has said anything about being in danger, being afraid, or why she would rather stay here than in her own house.”

“If she wants to stay, it’s fine. If she wants to go, it’s fine. Let me show you our rooms!”

I tried to understand if Nandi wanted to go. She wanted to come to my house. But finally agreed to stay at her mama’s house if I would come visit her at her house.

We left Nandi at her house yesterday with a hug, a kiss, a promise of returning the next day, and a drive home filled with silent prayers for God to do what He does bigger than He’s ever done it.

It felt undone. Because we’re in the “…” part of the story. You know, the part between the “Once upon a time…” and the “…happily ever after.”

On this third “rescue mission”, the third time we were going to get a little girl who wasn’t sure if she wanted to be rescued, I thought about the story of Hosea. The book of Hosea in the Bible is a story about a wayward, adulterous harlot who married and had children with a man of God. She had safety and security in him. She was pursued, loved, rescued and wanted by him.

But being the harlot had become her normal. Her identity.

Just like being the runaway. How can you quit who you are?

How can you quit your identity- even if it’s prostitution or running yourself into unbearably dangerous situations?

Hosea’s wife, Gomer, kept running back into her old ways because at least she knew it. It was the easiest way to feel known. Everybody knew Gomer.

Everybody knows Nandi.

She’s The Runaway.

But nobody knows why. Probably not even Nandi.

Gomer had Hosea’s babies. The Lord told Hosea to name his daughter Lo-Ruhamah. It means unpitied. Lo-Ruhamah was the symbol of the plight of Israel. A wayward people who wanted to be known skin-deep, and didn’t care why or how. It was just easier.

But here’s what the Lord says about his wayward girls. His daughters. His Bride. About Israel. About Africa. About Church. About me. About you. About Lo-Ruhamah and her mother. And about Nandi and her mother.

“Call her Lo-Ruhamah, for I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them. Yet I will show love to the house of Judah, and I will save them- not by bow, sword or battle, or by horse and horsemen, but by the Lord their God.” Hosea 1:6-7

“I will plant her for myself in the land; I will show my love to the one called ‘Not my loved one.’ I will say to those called ‘Not my people,’ ‘You are my people’; and they will say, ‘You are my God.” Hosea 2:23

Hosea had to chase Gomer over and over again. He continuously rescued her when she didn’t know if she wanted to be rescued. Because God knew her true identity – His Bride.

I have a feeling that yesterday wasn’t my last rescue mission with Nandi. And that the more I learn about the family, the more tangled and dysfunctional it will become.

But she’s worth it every time.

To Nandi, to me and to you:

I know you deeper than your skin. And deeper than the identity people write on you. I won’t stop coming for you. And I won’t get tired of it. You are worth it. You have been redeemed. And I can’t wait for you to know it all the way, to live in THAT identity: Pure, Renewed, Dearly Loved and Mine.