Autumn
Posted by taiwankat on December 16, 2009
Written by OMF missionary, Tera Van Twillert:
As a small girl Autumn was taken to church by a friend. She loved it. Her mother didn’t approve, but didn’t stop her either. With 8 more girls to care for she had enough at hand. Church made a deep impression on Autumn and when she felt misunderstood or mistreated she would go to her room, close the door, kneel and pray to God.
We met Autumn when she was 48 and her life had made a turn for the worse. As a young girl she was introduced to the wrong places to earn easy money. Life was glamorous, she earned heaps of money and sent some home, which silenced her parent’s questions. They didn’t know was that Autumn started using drugs and was involved in prostitution.
Autumn responded to our concern when we visited and one day confided that she was a drug addict. She was willing to receive help, but before we could arrange for her to enter a Christian Rehab center she was notified that she needed to go to prison (her 5th prison sentence for drug abuse).
We encouraged her to check in herself rather then wait to be caught, which would increase her punishment. And she did so for the first time in her life. Later she told us that at the same time the evil one came with another suggestion. Her drug dealer encouraged her to start selling drugs, that way she wouldn’t have to work so hard and could provid for her own habit. (How thoughtful!) Praise the Lord He helped her to make the right decision otherwise her prison term would have been much longer.
We sent her off, gave her a Bible and some money and visited her regularly in prison. When it came to the time of her release we realized she had no place to go and the only option would be a return to her old life. However she had become a Christian. We offered her to live with me, to provide some time to find her feet and start a new life. In my inexperience I thought 2 or 3 months would be enough. She promised me to come. Her fellow inmates laughed when she said she would stay out of trouble this time. They said goodbye, with a ‘See you again in prison’.
When Autumn came to me she had already spent some of her money buying drugs for a friend in need. Her promise to stay with me kept her from buying for herself. When she arrived her only belongings were a plastic bag with some clothes. Within a few days I realized that a few months wouldn’t be enough for her to face the outside world and survive.
She is learning many things like living in the daylight rather then at night. When we read Genesis she learned that God created night and day, that we are to work during the day and sleep at night. It was an eye opener for her to realize that her whole life she had been living against God’s natural law. Autumn has also been a great eye opener for me. If we hope for these ladies to leave their old life, we need to provide an environment where they can experience healing and recovery and grow strong in the Lord, before facing the challenge of finding a normal job in the outside world.
