God Opens the Door to Recovery for Lili and Andrea

God used legal and psychological staff at the Gideon Center in Villa Nueva, pictured above, to open the door to recovery for Lili and Andrea.

Lili and Andrea lived in fear of their own father for more than a year. The girls’ mother, Julia, began to suspect that something was wrong when her husband, Geraldo, began insisting that she always leave Andrea, 14, at home when she took the rest of the family to church. Andrea stayed quiet, but when Geraldo ordered Julia to leave 12-year-old Lili behind, Julia decided to find out what was really going on. That night, while Geraldo thought she was at church, Julia waited in the shadows behind the house. When she heard Lili’s screams, she burst through the door and caught Geraldo trying to rape her little daughter. Standing firm, she kicked Geraldo out of the house and told him not to come back.

Did you know? It costs only $50 to resolve a case like Lili and Andrea's through the Gideon Centers.

Julia did not know where to turn for help. Then, while visiting her cousin in Villa Nueva, a poor neighborhood in Tegucigalpa, she learned there was an AJS Gideon Center nearby. She immediately took Lili and Andrea to meet with the Gideon Center psychologist, Nazaria Romero. Nazaria learned that Lili and Andrea were suffering symptoms of severe post-traumatic stress due to the extensive sexual abuse they had experienced at the hands of their father. Lili could not sleep alone. They were afraid to go to school. They shied away from all older men. In addition they were still afraid that their father would come looking for them.

And he did. Early in June, while the two girls were in Tegucigalpa with the Gideon Center lawyer, Jenny Sauceda, for examinations at the Forensic Evidence Unit, Jenny received a frantic call from Julia. Geraldo was outside her house with a machete threatening to kill her. Jenny counseled her to call the police and press charges against him. Julia made the call, and Geraldo was detained at the police station long enough for the Gideon Center staff to compile the necessary evidence to bring rape charges against him and keep him in jail.

Nazaria said that despite the horrible abuse the two girls suffered, “God opened the door to recovery,” and, thanks to the Gideon Center staff, the girls stepped through. After working with Nazaria for a month, Lili now sleeps soundly alone in her bed; they both get outstanding grades in school; they no longer show sings of depression; and they are no longer afraid that their father will burst through the door at any minute.

In addition to providing psychological and legal assistance, the Gideon Center also helped Julia and her daughters pay for the trips from their home in Taulabe to the Gideon Centers in Tegucigalpa. These funds—25 for each trip—have come from a Victim Support Fund that gets it money from volunatry contributions by AJS project staff, and which provides financial assistance for some of ASJ’s poorest beneficiaries. Geraldo is currently awaiting trial.