Chapter 15: The Battle Intensifies

For the next few days, I prayed and thought constantly about two things:

The first thing I prayed is that I wouldn’t see Carmen working on the malecón again. On November 20^th, when I went on a run, she wasn’t there. I breathed a sigh of relief and took the long way home around 8pm, to check to see if she was in her apartment—but she wasn’t.

It was hard to imagine why else Carmen wouldn’t be home at that time of night. But she’s used to being out at night. She’s not afraid of the dark, I reminded myself. It didn’t necessarily mean she had gone back to working the streets. I prayed it didn’t mean that, and that she would be safe.

I wasn’t afraid of the dark either, but I knew it was getting too late to be out alone, even if all I had on me were my running clothes and house keys.

The second thing I prayed is that the Dominican government would find Carmen’s birth certificate. It seemed ludicrous that one piece of paper could open or close the door to freedom for a child fighting every day just to survive, physically and emotionally.

Earlier that day, I called the government official again to ask about the birth certificate. I wrote in my journal, “She said it could be tomorrow or a few more days (if they do find it), but she had called the people in San Juan today to check up on them. God is faithful!”

The next day, November 21^st, I called again.

They didn’t find it.

I couldn’t believe it.

“Did you check the day before? The day after? Other spellings of her name?”

“Yes,” the voice on the other end of the line answered. Yes, she had checked within 120 days of the date I had given her. It was possible the year or name were wrong, but they said they couldn’t check beyond what they already had.

Disheartened, I wrote to Erica, the safe house director:

“ They said the next step would have to be finding the mom, and asking her to declare Carmen. But in order to do that she would have to have papers from the hospital where she was born.

“What do you think?”

She wrote back right away:

“Oh Abby....this is tough one. I will LEGALLY have to ask Conani [Dominican Social Services] what to do. It's possible they will say no. Let me see if the Director is in tomorrow morning and I will let you know. It could take her a year to get things in order with all the mishaps in papers & government offices, etc. HOWEVER, she should go ahead and contact her mother and see if her mother has a birth certificate, knows the hospital and can get started getting papers from the hospital where she was born. ON OUR KNEES!!!!! Erica”

But, Carmen had already said she didn’t know the hospital she was born at, and that she wasn’t on good terms with her mother.

I did the only thing I knew how to do in moments of crisis—pray, and ask others to pray.

My mentor Viola typed a faith-filled, battle-cry prayer back to me:

“Thank You Lord for Your divine delay! We know that Your pans for Carmen are to prosper her and not bring harm to give her a hope and a future. We thank You for supernatural and uncommon favor, for creativity and ingenuity, for the release of the heavenly key that unlocks the door Carmen walk through…We speak to the mountain labeled birth certificate and demand you to move now in Jesus Name…Thank You that the power that raised Jesus is working for Carmen now to set the captive free in Jesus’ Name, amen. Thank You for revealing the one to whom You've giving authority in the natural to bring Your perfect will to pass. It is finished in Jesus’ Name, amen. For nothing and no one can thwart Your plan, God.”

While I interceded for Carmen, I listened to “Hold On” by Will Reagan and Brandon Hampton:

See you women and children
have been bounded to prostitution
You longing for Freedom
To be your only solution

But if they looked behind your eyes
And know that you have been deceived
How could they be so naive
To see that you not grieve?

But God sees to the heart
He sees all your pain
If you call on His name
He could take it all away

So put your hope and trust in
Every just thing that the Father
Has promised to do justly Trust me
He's coming to release you from captivity

…It won’t be long now, so just hold on now!

The next day, I met Carmen and Andre this morning for breakfast to give them the news and pray with them.

After I greeted them and handed over the homemade breakfast I had prepared, I remember hunching down under the low ceiling in Carmen’s bedroom and sighing.

“They didn’t find it.” I broke the news to her softly, not betraying how angry and desperate I felt.

I waited for a reaction, but there was none. Carmen was just quiet.

I told her Erica was meeting with Conani that day to see if they would make an exception for her and let her move without the birth certificate.

She nodded.

As we finished our breakfast, I got out my Bible and opened it to Psalm 70 and 71.

Make haste, O God, to deliver me!
Make haste to help me, O Lord YHWH!

Tears came to my eyes, and the words became a prayer as I read them aloud.

Deliver me in Your righteousness, and cause me to escape;

Incline Your ear to me, and save me.
Be my strong refuge…

By You I have been upheld from birth;
You are He who took me out of my mother’s womb.
My praise shall be continually of You.

A birth certificate couldn’t stop the plan of the God who has upheld her since birth.

“God is our refuge and our help! We will keep trusting in Him!” I said, as I got up to leave, hoping against hope that we would soon see the “substance of things hoped for”, and a way for Carmen to rest and heal.