Momma Bear
A momma bear is willing to stand between her children and an entire army to protect and defend.
I met the personification of her several weeks ago when she arrived at The House inquiring what we do on our corner in Orange Mound.
“We offer secure jobs,” I explained, and she began to cry.
Her story was familiar, but her layers of need were staggering. It was late in the day, and we assured her an interview the following Monday. Because she appeared to be only in her 20’s, we wrongly surmised her aspirations would be unfolding, and we would be a logical step in her discovering her career path.
She arrived early on Monday and pieces of her story unraveled before us as she shared the life that she had led in a wilderness otherwise known as the streets. Her past had been tightly tied and knotted in adversity. We learned she and her siblings had been abandoned by their mother, and DCS assigned them to multiple foster homes where she was sexually abused. She lived in the streets, meaning she was homeless, unemployed, and dependent on handouts. Injustices were her companions, and she trusted no one. She couldn’t finish high school. She was raped more than once along the way and has two daughters. One is special needs.
Undaunted, she has pieced together enough money to rent a worn-out, broken-down miserable three bedroom, one bath house a short distance from My Cup of Tea. She is “Momma Bear” to 4 of her brother’s sons, 3 of her half-sister’s sons, and her own 2 daughters. All of them live in the 3 bedroom dump for which her 2 siblings help match the exorbitant rent the Mama Bear calls home. Meanwhile she is applying to DCS to get custody of her deceased sister’s 6 sons who have been in foster care for a year. “I’m all they got,” she lamented as her story commanded our attention in the front office where we were all sitting.
She was resolute that she had to get her sister’s kids out of foster care, or they would never survive.
Her immediate need is furniture for the DCS inspection of her home. I offered to go home with her and look and see what we might be able to request of friends who give generously to our mission.
Most people aren’t aware of how bleak some living conditions in our city can be. I respectfully commended her for her housekeeping in deplorable conditions. The bathroom sinks pipe empties freely into the cabinet below it where a small bowl overflows with every use. There is a noticeable soft section in the kitchen floor that forewarns a breakthrough to the ground sooner than later. There is a boarded-up window in the living room, and menacing floor furnaces in the hall and kitchen area.
The 7 male kids sleep on 2 mattresses laid on the floor with their parent. Her daughters sleep in her bed without linens. There are 2 TVs, and a small table with 2 chairs. There is a washing machine, but the dryer is busted. Clothes are piled in every corner, since there are no hangers for the closets and no drawers or chests for folding clothes. Thirteen people call it home. She is completely dependent on a check she gets for her special needs daughter, and SNAP, formerly known as “food stamps,” which is government issued for low- and no-income parents.
She now has an income stream that is based on her work, and she has an army standing solidly with her instead of against her.
She is our newest employee. She sports 2 new custom uniforms with her name embroidered. She has been to the Neighborhood Christian Center clothes closet and has clothes that fit her amply. She comes to work early daily, in a car that sounds like a cement mixer but is able to make the round trips from home to Hanley Elementary to My Cup of Tea. She paid a small loan we gave her for a used tire back to us with her first paycheck. Now the car has one reliable paw. She is offered our leftovers to feed her children and is only recently aware of the food pantry access and delivery Ms. Pearl brings to us weekly.
If only a small part of this story is true, we have no choice but to stand with this Momma Bear.
Cynics don’t peruse Isaiah 57 as our MCOT sisters and volunteers often do.
Isaiah 57:6-11
6 "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness[a] will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say:
"Here am I. If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
Our friend who calls herself “Momma Bear” has one mission in mind, and that is to get all of her cubs under one roof where she can protect them from the predators in the wilderness she grew to hate. We have a mission as well, which is to bring light to her darkness and strengthen her resolve to trust her Creator whom we serve and obey and gladly share His grace.