"Found Girl"

Imagine a 17-year old girl studying for final exams. She is kidnapped and taken away by her captors. She is taken into the deeps woods, so deep and so dense that she cannot be found.  The captors “marry” her in a forced marriage, resulting in a baby being born. Now imagine this girl and her baby 2 years later.  She is near a road with her “husband”, seated and breastfeeding her baby daughter.  Suddenly, out of the covering of the woods, hunters spring out, and they are able to free the now 19-year old girl and her baby. They bring her home. There is great joy in her hometown, and they hold an impromptu celebration. Their rejoicing resounds throughout the night, for the lost has been found.

What emotions does this story stir up inside of you toward the girl you were just imagining, or for the baby girl who is someone’s granddaughter, or toward the captors?

This is a true story. Amina Ali Nkeki is the girl, the mother, the survivor.  She is one of the Chibok girls, one of the 276 school-girls kidnapped in from the Nigerian town.  She is the first of the girls to be found. She reports that six of her schoolmates died, but that all the others remain. Imagine that: 269 girls held captive, having babies, “serving” soldiers, in the worst sense of the word.  But, as Oby Ezekwesili, a former government official puts it, “We are going to use Amina as a symbol.” A symbol of what?

Well, of hope, of course. Hope that the strategy of using hunters who know the land; hunters who insisted that the government’s army let them help in the search, will be successful in locating all of the other girls. Hope that Amina is really just the first, and that the grandparents of 269 other babies will be reunited with their daughters and grandchildren. Hope that people around the world will remember and help the #BringBackOurGirls activists find success.  One found girl inspires the mission with new hope.

Hope is universal, crossing oceans and impenetrable borders. Hope stirs hunters to actions. Hope keeps the lost alive.  And when the lost are found, there is rejoicing in heaven.  This hope, that one found girl is the symbol of finding all the lost, is the hope that stirs hunters into action and parents into prayers.  This hope is the church’s “why.”

(Source: WSJ, May 19, 2016,Drew Hinshaw and Gbenja Akingbule)