Barbed-Wire Freedom

You probably know Nandi. I’ll include links to a few stories to catch you, just in case.

Nandi is a little girl who lived in a crippling household. Everyone around her has shrugged their shoulders, shook their heads and written her off with the name Runaway.

But God says to call her Freedom.

Because when you’re free, you don’t have to run anymore.

Nandi on Christmas Eve

Nandi was removed from her mother’s home and placed in a house full of pulsating love. She has parents who love her and have never known her as Runaway. She has foster sisters and brothers who have overcome their own painful stories. And a playground. And a new school. And homework help. And children’s church. And prayerful hands touching her everyday. And hope-filled voices speaking life into her.

Nandi is staying within the high and guarded fence of a ministry right down the road from me. When her school bus passes my car on the road, I see a long arm fly out the window and hear a gleeful scream, “Maaammaaa Kaaaaccyyyyyy!”

I visit her about once a week. She runs toward me screaming and flops her suddenly child-like body around me. She parades her friends, brings me cards, and then stomps her feet, puffs out her bottom lip, and begs me for cake.

Nandi’s a child again!

I told my friends at Michael’s Children’s Village (Nandi’s new home) about Nandi’s new name: Freedom.

And they told me that she dances wildly with flags to worship music in the prayer hut.

Freedom dances with flags flying in the name of Jesus.

Yesterday, I was waiting for her within the gates of her new home… and waiting, and waiting. I was telling the staff there about Nandi’s family when the bus driver came in and told me Nandi didn’t get on the bus. In fact, she saw it and ran.

So we went immediately to find Freedom.

I knew where she’d be. Nandi has family in the community where she is attending school now. Her uncle passed away last week and the whole family, including her mother, has been staying very close to where Nandi is dropped off every school day.

We found Nandi at the gate of her family’s house, standing with her brother Thami. She had waited for the day that her mother wouldn’t be there but her brother would.

Thami ran, jumped, wrapped those springy, 6-year old legs around me and planted a wet kiss on my lips immediately. Nandi slumped next to me, afraid to lift her head. She got in the car in silence, and we all prayed while she wept.

We drove her back to her new home. As the gate locked behind us, I could feel Nandi’s heart splitting in two directions. Her body limp, yet her hand squeezing mine, we walked into the prayer hut.

And she sobbed.

They weren’t angry tears.

And they weren’t scared tears.

For the first time, they were broken tears.

Shoulders shook and eyes flooded, and Nandi wailed her brother’s name over and over again.

Nandi's brother, Thami

Nandi was worried about Thami. She missed him, and she was afraid for him. Nandi received the blows of her mother’s shame before. Now Thami is the one carrying around the 2-month old baby, boiling his own bath water, and receiving the backhanded pain from a mother who bears strangers’ children from the dark corners of the dark nights.

I held her, and we cried.

And I thanked God for His timing, that I was there.

Nandi was crying broken tears.

And she was beginning to receive her new name.

Nandi wasn’t running away from the safe, guarded, fenced-in yard.

She was recognizing that it is safe there. And dipping her toes - toes made for dancing and not running - into the deep sea of freedom.

Nandi is relishing in a fence that protects her.

In barbed-wire freedom.

Because freedom isn’t wild, unprotected, and on your own.

Freedom is learning how to dance at home – inside the boundary lines - until it’s written all the way through you, and you can dance Light into dark places.

Nandi felt freedom flicker inside her.

In a place with rules that made more room for love.

In a place with gates that say they want her to stay.

In a place with people whose arms hold instead of hurt.

As she internalizes newfound freedom, I believe Nandi is beginning to experience some guilt. She’s dancing and Thami’s working. She’s feasting on freedom and her mother’s withholding milk from her new baby to punish her existence.

Broken Nandi is not operating in safety-mode for the first time in almost 12 years.

Freedom feels. And sometimes it hurts.

Sometimes freedom isn’t only flags-waving and fun.

Palm flags waved in the name of Hosanna, clearing the path for crucifixion.

Freedom pains stretch and groan. Freedom is the dance we were designed for on an earth that can’t keep up with heaven’s songs. Freedom is uninhibited praise in the protection and presence of the Holy Spirit – even when circumstances aren’t all better.

Freedom is inside the fence of Abba’s house. Because we were made to be Home with Him – in the place where there’s no pain to be protected from.

Barbed-wire freedom is only the beginning. And it’s a beautiful beginning.

The gate we were made to dance inside of is pearly, and the path is golden.

Let freedom’s flags wave high for Hosanna today and keep asking Him for the peace of His Spirit on his daughter called Freedom.

Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.