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Monday, January 01, 2007

Crush

 

Tina She first came to the drop-in within the first month of us opening.  Very quiet at first, but once you got to know her she would talk and talk.  It seems she had no one to listen to her all her life.  At the age of 15 she had seen more than most at age 40. 

 

Her father was an alcoholic and verbally abusive. Her mother was physically and verbally abusive.  Her father would also beat her mom.  She remembers her one brother being beaten to a point of where he didn’t come out of the basement for days.  She learned to leave the house or find a quiet corner to avoid her fighting parents.  Her one brother after being beaten, walked out in to the cold and froze himself to death.  When Tina was in young, her dad killed a man in a drunk driving incident. She was ostracized at school and everywhere she went.  Even her cousins who lived close to her didn’t talk to her.

 

Her two brothers went out for a car ride one day and got into an accident.  The youngest died and the older brother felt so guilty, he committed suicide in the house the next month.  This was her life and all she knew.  She reflected this pain in her choice for boyfriends. They were also abusive. She was rarely without a boyfriend.

 

She probably attended the  Switch Yard the most out of anyone and truly felt it was her home. Tina helped out in the work crew and came to any event that would help Switch Yard. She even cleaned the drop-in with a gang of youth to keep it tidy. She had a bit of a crush on me which complicated a lot of my time in the drop-in.  We didn’t have many volunteers and so I was left to open the drop-in by myself.  Tina would come as soon as I opened the drop-in, way before anyone else would come. (I spent a lot of time out the deck---for accountability reasons).  She would spend hours telling me a lot of things and drivel information to pass the hours over a game of scrabble.  She could draw very well and filled much of our art wall with her pictures.  She had a very low self-esteem. She could never see herself of any worth because her dad always called her useless.  As of late, her style of dress prompted her dad to call her a ‘little whore’ or a ‘slut’.  She was always worried about her weight and would starve herself sick. At many times she would have nervous break downs and would be crying on the couches many different days.  She would call me when she wasn’t at the drop-in at times bawling over something her parents called her. 

 

She came to me to become a Christian. She has seen me spending a lot of my time with other youth who had become Christians.  I asked why she wanted to become in a relationship with Christ.  In the end she was doing it for me. I realized I had become her father figure.  She didn’t become a Christian at that point.

 

She started dating a guy named St eve who was an alcoholic.  She got drunk for the first time with him and showed up at Switch Yard.  She was laughing and giddy.  She could see I wasn’t impressed.  They went back to the house where they got drunk and she sent a friend to see what I thought of them coming in drunk. I relayed on to her that I was disappointed.  The whole group came back crying and full of sorrow for what they had done.   She needed to talk to me as a daughter to a father.  We had to go for a walk to get off all of the guilt that was on her. I forgave her and she promised not to do it again.

 

She ended up attending a lot of the bible studies and came once to church with me.  She never ever came to me to inquire of how she wanted a relationship with Christ again.  I would ask but she didn’t feel ready for it at the time. 

 

Her parents avoided the drop-in and became very suspicious about what the Switch Yard was about.  They would lecture her for hanging out there so much. I once made the attempt to come their vehicle to talk to them. They seem reserved and distant.  It wasn’t until the mother came to a fund-raiser event at the Switch Yard that I would make some connection.  I met the mom and she was put at ease over what the drop-in was about.  I finally went to the house and met her father. He helped me with repairing my old car and soon became trusting of what the ministry of Switch Yard was.

 

Tina has since struggled with meaning and value for her life.  She needs a mother figure to come along side her and encourage the God given value inside.  

 

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