Where can I go from Your Spirit?

The littest girl sat reigning over the room from her plastic throne. Two of our American guests towered over her as her guards. She was a perfect bossy King Saul as her thin arm extened towards our 'David' demanding the reason 'he' stood before her. Later our 'David' had to use all 5 scotch tape 'stones' to fell the lanky 'Goliath' who toppeled to the tile ground in a suprisingly subdued fashion to a round of giggels from the rest of the Bible story players. The most moving moment of the day however was the singing of Psalm 139. The women crowded around the kids table in our makeshift space in the foyer of the women's shelter. They moved gracefully with the motions to these words
"Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I hide from your presence?
If I go up to heaven Your there. If I make my bed in the depths you are there.
  If I ride on the wings of the dawn, if I sail on the far side of the sea
even there your hand will guide me and your right hand will hold me close"
In the beginning of our time with the kids 12 year old Molly** gazed across the table with dead eyes. Have you ever seen dead eyes? I remember seeing those eyes before in a friend from Kosovo who had experinced severe trauma. Occasionally it was as if she was with me in body but the real self was tucked away in some deep dark room of her heart. I kept addressing Molly during the activities hoping to draw her out of that dark inner closet into the light. She slowly came back, eventually playing one of David's brothers in the drama. By the end of out time her eyes were alive again as she jumped up and helped lead the motions of the song, "Only a boy named David" led by our visitors. I was so happy to see Molly come back to us. You see Molly was raped by her Father, a man that should have been a protector. The women and children in this shelter have been in some very dark places and when they leave they may not return to anything better. We are only allowed a little knowledge of their situation while they are at the shelter and are not allowed to exchange contact information. It can feel hopeless volunteering with the women and children as you never know how long you will have them for before their case is finished and they are sent away. My prayer is in that short time they would grasp the truth that no matter where they will go...their loving Creator Father is there with them in the darkness. **Molly is not her real name as we are limited on what we can say about the women and children. Any pictures I have of them can only be of their hands. The Header image is of the girls holding their cross gospel craft as well as their TP roll crowns that we made in the study where we learned about how we are God's princesses.