Kilsi update

Hi,

Just another update for those who have been praying and asking about Kilsi.  After Kilsi ran away on Wednesday, she called Thursday night and said she was going to come back on Sunday with two teenage friends (also from the sex trade) to live in the house again.  We spent the weekend preparing the house for the 3 of them, and talked to Kilsi Sunday morning around 10 a.m. when she said she was leaving Santo Domingo (about 3 hours from our house) and said she would be there soon.  We waited all day until 9pm and checked every bus that came in and she was not on any othem.  We talked to her and she said she was in La Vega, a city about 45 minutes away from us.  Two of the guys from our team went down to get her and looked for around 2 hours for her.  When they called and told her they were in La Vega to pick her up, they heard loud music in the background (like she was maybe in a bar) and she hung up on them.  They tried calling back several times and she never answered (though the phone did ring, so the battery was not dead).  We waited up last night for a while longer for her and she never came home at all during the night.  It was a tough weekend, and we´re not sure what is going on with Kilsi and her friends - if she is messing with us or if there is something bigger going on.  A parent of one of my students said the other day (when I returned to school bawling after Kilsi first ran away) - this is why God gives us babies, so we start out easy and have over a decade to train them up - you´re starting at the hardest phase Mrs. DeYoung!  So I feel for all of you out there who are also trying to mother teenagers, especially teenage girls, it´s not an easy task at all.  Please keep Kilsi and her two friends in your prayers, as well as the other 3 girls, Jessie, Katerin, and Yaguira, who also ran away.  Dave and I and the rest of the Priceless team can use your prayers too. :)  Keep in touch, and thank you for all of your prayers and encouraging emails, sorry I don´t have time to respond to each one individually, but I do love you all and appreciate you.

Love and prayers,
Kristin

Hi again,
Just want to let you all know that Kilsi, the girl who has been living with us the past two weeks ran away today and went back to the streets.  We really feel like it came out of nowhere cause she has been making so much progress and are totally devastated.  If you can please pray for her safety and that she would return if it is in God's will.  We are really having a hard time with this and are super bummed out.  Sorry also to all the personal emails I have not had time to write back to - I promise it's on my to-do list - we have been short-staffed at work since last week so it has been really nuts at school so I never get online to check my email and we don't have internet at home so I'm really sorry for the excuses but please keep in touch and keep Kilsi in your prayers.  Thanks!
Love,
Kristin

Hi everybody,

I haven´t had a chance to update the blog and I know I´ve seriously like fallen off the face of the earth lately and not returned anyone´s emails and I´m sorry, life has been CRAZY...but CRAZY in a good way.  I´m at an internet cafe right now so I don´t have enough time to update the blog, but just wanted to give a quick update to everyone who has been asking.  Since my last pity party of an email, God has been answering prayers in big ways... and no I don´t mean by any pink lines or plus signs on a pee stick, sigh... BUT there have been some crazy BIG changes. So I´ll try to keep this as short as possible.

We moved the first week of September from our tiny apartment that had been destroyed after we got evicted to an American boarding school up on the mountain in this HUGE palace of a house with an amazing view and hot showers and even an American washer and dryer - we were super spoiled.  And the best part of all of it were the staff there, the most amazing people who just blessed us constantly and prayed for us.  It was like a total refuge, vacation home.

While we were living there and teaching at Jarabacoa Christian School, I went on a weekend mission trip to the south of the island to work with the anti-trafficking organization I volunteer with and some different teams who were working to rescue victims from sex trafficking.  I never realized at the time how much that trip would change my life.  It was an incredible trip and weekend, and 12 girls were rescued (both underage and above 18).  I can´t even explain the inspiration I got from these women who would walk right up to the brothels with me side by side and risk so much to give their testimonies.

After the women were rescued and brought to various safe houses and such, it was realized that the home for underage girls here in country was not ready and could not take some of the girls so we needed to start a safe house of our own in Jarabacoa, and fast.  The leaders of the organization asked if Dave and I could be the house parents, all in a matter of a few days. 

We prayed about it a LOT and decided to move out of our beautiful mountain home, yes that was hard after being there for 3 weeks of luxury American living, and have now become the house parents of the safe house.  It has been busy and challenging, but also a blessing.  We had 4 girls but 3 of them ran away in the first week after being rescued before we had even moved in with them.  It´s hard to imagine that that they would rather be on the street than with us but maybe someday they will be back.  We are asking them to make radical changes in their lives which is not easy.  The one who did stay is a beautiful, strong, funny, smart, AMAZING woman of God.  It is unbelievable to see how she has tranformed her life so quickly and I adore her already. 

So that´s the big news.  I will be resigning from my teaching job but I don´t know when yet.  I am supposed to have a student teacher coming in a couple of weeks, who looks awesome, a girl from Switzerland who has traveled all over Africa and speaks a bunch of languages so I´m sure we will get along great.  So that could be a huge help if I do decide to stay til Christmas I will have her there with me for 6 weeks.

So that´s the update - CRAZY huh?  Some MAJOR changes happening here, but I know God is working behind all of it.  Right now we are in Puerta Plata visiting a childhood friend, Aryn Bloodworth, and supposed to be getting some R and R but so far it´s been just crazy hot traveling cause our bus broke down yesterday and it was like 110 degrees inside, no joke..... I have a million and one other things I could write but since we haven´t had internet at home now for over a month I just don´t have the time to get online at work since I´m trying to roll two jobs into one between teaching and the safehouse.  Speaking of which, being that it is a SAFE house, it is a secret down in this area and no one is to know about it.  There is always a risk that pimps could come around looking for their girls and we want to protect the girls´ identity and image so please NOTHING on facebook (Mom I know you want to tell the world you´re proud of me and to pray for us, but not on a public forum por favor).

Okay, that´s all for now, until we get internet and I can start updating the blog again... by the way, did anyone notice that Santa and Dave somehow both got a hold of my blog password?!? :) 

Lots of love, peace, prayers,and sunshine sent to all of you,
Kristin xoxo

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Kilsi and I going to Escuela Caribe retreat week!