Claribel and Nicole

When Claribel was 13 and Nicole was 3, they lived with their grandmother because their mother was a drug addict and prostitute.  Their grandmother was a member of the church here so 2nd Mile went to fix up her house.  When they broke into the crumbling concrete, cockroaches came scurrying out from underneath the floor.  And then tarantulas followed.  Termites were eating the wood of the walls and roof.

Because they made the house nicer, Claribel and Nicole's mother's boyfriend decided to move in.  So the 5 of them shared two rooms.  Their mother was strung out on drugs and prostituting herself in the same room where her 13 year old and 3 year old slept. 

One night the grandmother and the mom's boyfriend started fighting and the grandmother ended up dead.  Claribel ran to the church to get the nightguard and he called an ambulance and took the girls away from the home to stay at the pastor's house.  Where else would she have come if the church wasn't here?
 

The next day, a 2nd Mile trip arrived and they were there and able to spend time with Claribel for the week.  Do you think that's a coincidence?  That a young girl

who would need the love and care of a mother after witnessing the death of the closest thing she had to a mother, would be sent 8 mothers! 

Later they took the girls from their mother and took them out to a farm about 6 hours away in the mountains to a grandmother and grandfather who were very poor coffee and tomato farmers.  Rod says that he had the best coffee ever there.  They had many cousins also living there.  2nd Mile paid for Claribel to go to a Christian school there. 

After a year of  both of them living there, Claribel moved to Santa Domingo with her father and Nicole moved back to Bavaro with an

aunt and lived across the street from Karina who works at the school.  Nicole was quite wild, now she is much better as she has more structure.  The aunt she was staying with got sick and went to the hospital.  Nicole lived with Karina for a few weeks.  Claribel, who is very protective of Nicole, moved back to help take care of her and they both moved back in with their mom. 

Now at 16, Claribel is working at the school and going to the adult school on the weekends.  Her mother attended church with her Sunday when we were there and accepted Christ. 

Claribel helped us today with passing out gifts to the kids at the school and she was amazing.  She is a young leader, willing to help.
I asked Nicole the other day what she wants to be when she grows up and she told me she wants to work at the school.  Like her big sister.