Restore: to bring back to a state of health, soundness or vigor.
Isabel is 6 years old. She was an only child and lived with her mom. But Isabel’s mom got pregnant and could not afford to raise both girls. So Isabel was sent to live with her dad, his girlfriend and their children. Isabel’s mom thought that this way, her daughter would have a better life. Isabel slept on the floor, got further behind in school and only saw her mom and baby sister on the weekends.
America is 7 years old. Her and her family used to live in a neighborhood north of Roots & Wings. Each day her mom would commute to work in the garbage dump. After a while, however, the commute became too much. So America’s mom and her younger siblings moved back to the area and left America with her aunt. America’s mom felt it would be better for America to stay with her aunt so that she could continue to attend school and not fall behind. America got behind in school, she battles with feelings of rejection and she only saw her mom and younger brothers on the weekends.
Both of these little girls had something else in common: while they were separated from their family, their younger siblings were accepted into Roots & Wings.
Roots & Wings is a family-focused ministry; we talk about family preservation a lot. We will always make every effort to keep families from being torn apart. But what happens when it’s too late? In both these cases, that meant that when we accepted Isabel and America’s younger siblings, we also began encouraging their moms to bring their daughters home. We talked through the reasons why they felt that their children were better off living with someone else. We helped them to see that they could in fact raise their children and that Roots & Wings was here to help them do just that.
Both Isabel and America are back home. Both of these families have begun the restoration process. But the girls being back home is not where our efforts in restoring families end. All of our families are in a process of restoration. With God’s help and guidance Roots & Wings is trying to lead every one of these families towards becoming a healthy, loving, God-centered family unit.
