Yesterday was Vanessa's 14th birthday. Tonight we (Steed's & Schmidt's) celebrated with her and her sister and brothers. It was a fun party but it also reminded us how hard life is for this young girl. It's not customary in this culture to let babies cry so Vanessa carries her baby sister around most of the day - it's hard for her to do anything let alone go to the bathroom. Not only that, she gets up every night at 3am to heat the baby some milk and feed her. This 14 year old is living the life of an adult mother with a baby and 2 other kids to care for. With all that, she is still smiling and doesn't think about how hard life is, she does what needs to be done without complaining.
Last week Gina, Julio (our Spanish teacher) and I went to Vanessa's house to clean and tidy things up. We told her we were coming back to clean so she cleaned up as best she could and was so proud of herself. She didn't want us to have to do that for her. When we were there, we saw that they didn't have sheets for their beds so Gina brought those and that one of the beds is literally falling apart so we are working on getting them a new one. I brought back 6 loads of laundry and gave the boys some new underwear - from all that laundry, they didn't appear to have any. The next day, Gina took them some milk and formula for Esdrys and we bought them pillows for their beds as they were using old rolled up blankets. We still praying for her mom and how we can help with their situation. Until then, we are loving her lots and doing all we can to help her and make life a little bit easier.
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