Hope.

Do you remember the client that had the greatest impact on my summer in Rwanda? 
Well, hold on tight because this post holds little back. 

She was kidnapped, raped repeatedly and locked in a home where a candle caught on fire and burned her so badly her legs had to be amputated. Through counseling with her mother, we learned that she barely survived the genocide in 1994 and was staying in a shelter when a Ugandan man started "caring" for the women and giving them money. In exchange, he raped them. Jaime's mother was basically a sex slave for this man. When she got pregnant with Jaime, she stayed but hated suffering the man's abuse. When she got pregnant again, she finally left and left Jaime behind with her father.

When you watch the video, you see Jaime tell her story. She doesn't talk about the case, or about the intricate details of just how horrible her childhood was. She speaks of God's ability to instill hope when it seems it is lost forever.

I met her mother and father, who both abandoned her. Baraka, who speaks in the video, counseled with both of them and her father has actually been to visit Jaime and has helped financially support her. An incredible feat! I worked on her legal case against the two perpetrators. I met the principle one who kidnapped and raped her in court, and have never felt such a strange and disgusting feeling. The first guy claimed that he was under the age of criminal liability and caused us to go find his birth certificate. He was actually around 40 years old. As a legal strategy, we ended up asking the court to join the two men's cases together so that they would point fingers saying, "the other one did it" and that the Judge would see they both should go to jail for a long, long time. I do not know the outcome of the legal case, and it isn't relevant. I share this video with you because you prayed for her, because you prayed for me and my heartbreak after we met, and you pray for the incredible work that IJM does. The people and places in the video are REAL to me. I share it with you so that for four minutes, you have insight into IJM, into the emotionally charged nature of this kind of work, and into Rwanda.

Her smile is real, her hope is palpable, and her courage is astounding. I think its very possible no other client for the rest of my legal career will touch me like she did.

Please share her story, I know that I always will.

My original blog post when I first met Jaime: http://defineyourdestination.blogspot.com/2013/06/from-field-into-field.html

To read more from IJM and to donate to IJM's incredible life changing work: http://ijm.org/jamies-story

Free Refills

In a derogation from my series of Madrid posts, I wanted to write again about my experience working in Legal Aid earlier in the summer. Now that I've had some time away from it, it's easier to write about the challenges of working in such an environment.

One of my last days in the office, a man came in with a family law issue. He had just sat down when he burst into tears. It took him almost five full minutes to pull himself together enough to communicate that he had a child custody issue he needed our help with. This poor man's story was very complicated. He explained to us while using nearly a box of Kleenex about his three children that are all near the age of majority. His ex-wife had sole physical and joint custody and she wasn't allowing him visitation anymore. After asking him questions and trying to assess how to best address his custody order, we uncovered that he was also in tremendous debt. He owed thousands and thousands of dollars in another custody case from a previous marriage. He told us that he had a part time job, but that his entire pay check was going to Child Services to pay this debt. He told us about his mental health issues and his battle with depression and suicidal thoughts. I was overwhelmed. I was out of steam from dealing with clients so similar all summer.

This was client number twenty-two for the summer for me.
I was tired, not sufficiently caffeinated and completely emotionally barren.

I started to push through all of that and resuscitate some courage. Two other colleagues of mine and I started to work through the main issue - his impending court date in relationship to the current child custody issue.

About an hour into our meeting, we learned he is homeless.
Any strength I had just mustered evaporated.
I reached a total maximum.
It was like a newborn baby when they have sensory overload so they just look away or close their eyes. It's like that was my response because I had reached my emotional overload.
I excused myself. I walked into another room, opened my computer and started calling homeless shelters.

Legal Aid is a field of unimaginable hurdles and obstacles. In our limited scope representation, its very hard for us to feel we even scratch the surface on the iceberg of issues they have.

My colleagues continued to work for nearly three hours on his case, a complete aberration for our office. They poured their heart into encouraging him, and into giving him hope for a brighter future. I was proud of them. I was happy that they had been filled that morning, when I felt so drained.

I found him a shelter that would take him that night, and gave him all the contact information.
I do not know if he went there.
I do not know what happened at his court hearing.
I do not know if he is okay.

What I do know is that when I am dry, I ask to be refilled.
And He always answers.