Jade

We have a guest blogger today, one who plans to start her own blog soon. Wendi Rigsby, a co-worker at MYC, wrote this one. I'll let you know where you can find her new blog when we get it up and going.

We were getting ready to go home after club one day and I noticed that two of our students were wearing the exact same outfit. They had on a green and blue striped polo-type shirt and baggy khaki shorts. I think they even both had on black Vans tennis shoes. There were a couple of differences in the kids, however. One of them was clean, had a nice hair cut, a nice back pack, and he was smiling. The other kid was not so clean, had hole-ridden clothes, had a torn backpack, matted hair, and she was not smiling. She was not smiling because the other kids were pointing and laughing. They had noticed that she was wearing the same clothes as the little boy beside her. They called her boy names and said really mean things to her. I wish I could say this was the first time this had happened, but I can’t.

For the sake of the story, I’m going to call this little girl Jade. Every time Jade came to us, she was in boy’s clothes. These were not just clothes that looked like they could be boy’s, but clothes that came from the boy’s section. After a while of hearing what the other kids were saying about her, I pulled her aside and just asked her a few questions. I found out that most of her clothes were hand-me-downs from male relatives. Also, by the tone of the conversation, I gathered she wasn’t very happy about it. I started praying for Jade and about what I could do about her situation.

After praying about it, I knew I had to do something to help. I talked to Mark to see if the Mission could do anything, and he went and talked to some people in the Mission stores. A few days later, Jade and I went over to the store to get her some new girl-clothes. She seemed hesitant at first but went along. Ms. Carolyn in the store helped us to find some things that were in Jade’s size. The first shirt she pulled out was a very pretty babydoll-type shirt with a flower print. I asked Jade if she would like to have that shirt, and she shrugged her shoulders and looked at the floor. When I asked her what was wrong, she shuffled her feet for a few seconds, and then finally said “My dad won’t let me wear girl clothes.” I thought surely she meant he didn’t want her to wear things that were immodest or she couldn’t play in. So I asked, “You mean he doesn’t want you to wear nice girl clothes?” She replied, “No, I can’t wear any girl clothes at all.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. In my line of work, I see some strange things, but this one was new. I was still determined to find her some new things that didn’t look so boyish. We managed to find her several shirts that weren’t very girly but were made for girls. The last shirt that we pulled out was a Hannah Montana T-Shirt. Now, the whole time we had been going through these clothes, she had been polite but still a bit reserved. When we pulled out that t-shirt, she really got excited. She smiled for the first time the whole day (I haven’t seen her smile that much in general) and was almost bouncing. This may be the first time this little girl has ever been able to get excited over a new piece of clothing.
We found her a few shirts and some pants and jeans. Then we moved on to shoes. We asked her what size shoe she wore and she said, “Whatever size my cousin outgrows.”

It took a few minutes, but we figured out her size and found her a new pair of tennis shoes. They were brown with a pink stripe. She was excited because they didn’t have laces and they didn’t have holes. She put them on and ran up and down an aisle to try them out. She really liked the shoes, but then Ms. Carolyn pulled out these leather flip flops. They had cork bottoms and silver accents. Her eyes lit up. I asked if she thought she might like them, even though the answer was written on her face.

We walked back in to the Youth Center, and she had a large garbage bag full of new clothes hugged tight to her chest. When we got back, it was time for gym. She asked if she could go change her shoes. I assumed that she was going to put on her new tennis shoes so she would be more comfortable running around in the gym. I should have known better. She spent the next half hour sliding around the gym in those leather flip flops. She didn’t take them off the rest of the day.
That afternoon when we lined up to go home, she once again had that bag of clothes clutched tightly. Another little girl in line noticed her shoes and said, “Oh! Your shoes are so cute!” I’m thinking this is probably another first for Jade. I doubt she had ever been complimented on any piece of clothing before. Her whole face lit up. She smiled bigger than I’ve ever seen her smile. I will continue to pray for her and her father. I pray that he will allow her to keep and wear the things that we got for her that day in the store. She is a wonderful little girl, and that afternoon was a blessing to me and a reminder of why I am here, doing what I do.