Betrayed

Perhaps one of the worst things in life - being betrayed by someone you trust and love. Seven months ago, a young girl came to work for us at the Family Place. I loved her like my daughter and poured hours into her, teaching & training her. She had become my right-hand helper and I couldn't manage without her. I taught her how to make our homemade bread; she made the best chili in town and had a pleasant and bubbly personality that all the customers came to love. Most important of all, she prayed to give her heart to Christ and seemed to be growing ever so slowly in her faith. Her prayers were beautiful, calling God "Baba" or "Daddy". The Family Place was closed for most of the month of Ramadan and re-opened the last week. Because there was very little work to do, I decided to send her and her friend (our cleaning person) to our new families' houses to clean for them. It was soon discovered that the girls had been stealing from the families (one of them, a large amount of cash and jewels). We actually had been missing small amounts of money here and there and even a few times confronted my helper but she vehemently denied it and I believed her. Now we were more than sure of their guilt and decided we had to report them to the police. I spent hours at the police station and later at the court. We eventually forgave them for our part and after spending 6 days in jail, they were released to go home but are still awaiting their final sentence. Although we forgave them (they would have gone to jail for 2-5 years), the state will not forgive them and they will probably get a large fine and 2 years probation. It breaks my heart that this beautiful young girl threw her life away like this. She had gorgeous, long hair which her mother had to cut immediately when she returned home from 6 days in jail. It was matted with dead cockroaches and nasty stuff from the floor where she slept! She was engaged to be married but of course she will never get married now. She has brought such shame to her entire family and her father now forbids her to even leave her house to buy bread. I have visited her twice in her home and it is extremely sad. She is very remorseful and sorry for what she did. I don't believe the end of this story has been written yet. I believe God wants to teach this young girl about forgiveness and redemption. I plan to continue to visit her and show her Christ's love but it's not easy having been betrayed like this. To realize that all the months that we were laughing together and praying together and enjoying working together, she was stealing behind my back and many other peoples' backs as well. It really is very hard to have been betrayed like this.