Who Wants to be a Princess?
By Elizabeth Fox, Global Encounters Director of Operations
This is a story about two girls. One of them I know, the other I never got a chance to meet, but I've thought about her a lot ever since the day when I found out why I hadn't met her. The first, the one I know, is named Beatrice. Dark eyes, dark hair, fair skin, round face - she lights up when she smiles! I love to make her smile! The innocence on her face belies her very unstable existence. She bounces around from one relative or friend to the next. Consistency and security are something she has never known. You would expect her to be reserved and distrustful, but she isn't. Spend time with her, give her a taste of God's unchanging love for her, and she will quickly reward you with sparkling smiles and warm, trusting hugs.My favorite memory with Beatrice was the day she got saved. She was in my little Bible study group at a camp in central Romania. I had been trying to explain to the girls what it meant to be adopted. Most of them have been abandoned by their parents and fend for themselves (imagine doing this at age ten!), so I was getting a lot of blank looks. 
Small wonder! Struggling to connect, I started telling a story about a dirty street kid who lived outside the nearest castle (the Romanian landscape is dotted with castles, so that part they understood). In my story, the king from the castle offered to make the little street girl his daughter, provide clean clothes for her, bring her to live in the castle, protect her and love her. Forever. When I asked the girls what they would say to an offer like that Beatrice immediately shouted, "Yes! I'd say yes!" Later that morning I got to explain to her the invitation she had from the King of Kings to be His daughter, be cleaned up from all of her sin, and made a part of His family. It was an invitation she gratefully accepted.So what about the second girl - the one I never met? Where does she fit in this story? I don't even know her name... all I know is that she is the girl who was supposed to be at camp that week, but wasn't. Her little brother was there, soaking up the fun, the teaching, the love, and the laughter and enjoying a roof over his head and three meals a day. She had planned to come, but just before the camp her uncle decided that she was old enough to start "working" and he lined up "jobs" for her. She's twelve, maybe thirteen. Those nights when the kids at the camp were hearing stories, making s'mores with us, finding out how much God loves them... she was working as a prostitute. Instead of being loved and protected, she was being abused, hurt, degraded. The day I heard about this I cried. My heart aches when I think of that young girl feeling dirty and worthless.
What about all of the other kids from camp - so vulnerable and abandoned. What will keep Beatrice from being forced into prostitution? How will Nicolitsu ever be able to get an education and support a family when he is already working as a woodcutter at age nine? What about twelve year old Raymond who works construction to have money for food or Ionel, who cried himself to sleep because his dad had just died and whose prayer request was that he would have a place to live after the camp was over?
Not many people reach out to these kids, but there is a church that has started something very different for their area. It's a tiny church, but they have started working with these kids regularly. Iulia, Flavia, and others are teaching them the Gospel and discipling them. One of the ways that they invest in these kids' lives is through the summer camp - the same one where the Global Encounters team worked last year to provide the camp program and where Beatrice got saved.
Would you like to be a part of working with these children this year? We are sending a team to put on the camp program again. Right now, we desperately need a couple more people to join that team. Will you be one of them? Will you be God's way of speaking His love and truth into the lives of these kids that He loves and longs to draw into His family? If you can't go yourself (I know, not everyone can take off to a foreign country for three weeks), will you help provide scholarships for those who want to go but lack the resources? We have some people who will go in a heartbeat if the money is there to cover their plane ticket, food, and housing. Check out the team details to let me know if you're interested in helping.
Elizabeth Fox has been involved in children's ministry since 1993 and family and teen ministry since 2000. Currently, Elizabeth works for Global Encounters as the director of operations. She has led mission teams in Romania, Peru, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, and South Africa and coordinated teams to a number of other locations. In addition to her interests in international ministry, Elizabeth enjoys floral design, volleyball, and spending time with her siblings.