She’s Got the Brokedowns
It’s January 2007, and I am in a bare concrete building in India, holding a 3-week-old baby girl. Her name is Vickey. She’s swaddled in a green towel, looking up at me with big brown eyes.
She has no idea how special her story is yet.
My friend, Anival, and I spend the day falling in love with her and 11 other little girls. When the day is over we hop into the Jeep with our Indian friend, Amal, for the trek back across the mountain to our hotel. Anival and Amal are in the front seat chatting away and I’m in the back seat, quietly sobbing. Finally, Amal looks back at me, sees me falling apart, and looks over at Anival to say,
“She’s got the brokedowns.”
I have no idea what word he is trying to say in English, and I decide not to ask. Because yes, in this moment, I feel very broken down.
I finally eek out, “Amal, if it weren’t for you and your brother, they’d all be dead . . .”
He replies, “Yeah.”
We ride the rest of the way back in silence.
On that ride home, in the cold Indian night air, a vision was birthed in my heart. I knew, without a doubt, I was meant to be a part of this work.
* * *
I knew of the preference for a son in Indian culture. The tradition of having their firstborn son light their funeral pyre, thus preventing their soul from being lost. I knew that the dowry system was a huge financial burden for families - many are not able to pay for their daughters to be married. I also knew that families would pay their midwife to kill their baby girl, in the hopes she would be reincarnated as a boy next time.
I knew all these things intellectually, but as I held little Vickey in my arms it became very real. I was holding a little girl who would have been dead had my friends not risked their lives to rescue her. She lives now because of their courage. As I played with the little girls in the home that afternoon, I imagined the world - changers they would become.
I knew I wanted to be a part of it.
So I came home and began dreaming. But a few months later I received the news that my Indian friend running the ministry had become hospitalized with malaria. He passed away just one week later.
The work slowly stopped. My hopes of working with them crashed.
It did occur to me that maybe I was supposed to pick up the reigns. But for the next six years I let self - doubt and insecurity hinder me from that. God would give me visions and dreams about what to do and how to do it; and I made every excuse about how I needed Him to provide the way.
I was waiting on God, while He was waiting on me to take that first step of trust.
Then, one January, I was watching a live stream of Gary Haugen - of International Justice Mission - over the Internet. He was speaking on how we are God’s plan for showing the world who He is. God doesn’t have another plan. We are the plan.
I sat in front of the computer with tears in my eyes, embarrassed by my lack of faith and courage. I made up my mind that day to trust, even though I didn’t have all the answers.
I changed my Facebook job to say: Rescuer of Girls in India.
A few months later I put a name to the company: Rescue Pink. I hired attorneys to form a corporation and began writing a business plan, job descriptions and formulating budgets. The final business plan was being written so we could become an official non-profit corporation.
I’ll be honest. This entire process has been hard. I am the most reluctant leader. I am not well spoken. I don’t match the image in my mind of what a great leader is supposed to look like. I don’t have that special something I always thought accomplished people just had.
I’m ordinary.
But God likes to use the ordinary when they are willing. To become willing, I had to finally realize that it’s not about me. I had to trust that God has His own plan and He has chosen me to accomplish it.
Once I jumped off the ledge, every single thing fell into place. I know He was just waiting on me to blindly trust Him.
“If I die with my dream in my heart, I die a dreamer; but if I die with my dream in their hearts, I die a legacy.” – Matt Higgins