"You have five minutes to run, or I will kill you."
Can you imagine hearing an armed rebel say this to you? Imagine the panic that you would feel. Where would you go? What would you do? For too many children, women, and men, this is the reality of life. And ADRA is there, helping them rebuild their shattered lives.
Maria and her husband owned their own business and had a large farm in Colombia. They and their three children lived a comfortable life and were very happy. Then one day, two years ago, a group of armed rebels walked out of the jungle and onto their farm. Without saying anything, they simply walked up to her husband and two sons and shot and killed them on the spot.
"After killing my husband and my 14- and 16-year-old sons right in front of my eyes," Maria shares through her tears, "the rebels gave me five minutes to leave, or they would kill my daughter. I grabbed my daughter's hand and ran. The image of my husband's and sons' deaths will haunt me till I die."
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Without being able to go into the house to take food, clothing, or prized possessions, and without being able to get the car keys, Maria and her daughter, Lorena, ran for their lives.
"I didn't know where to go. I had no plan," Maria says. "We simply ran through the jungle for days and days. Eventually, we came to the water that separates Colombia from Ecuador and crossed over."
"I knew no one and had nothing. I was very afraid," she says. "For the first year, a farmer allowed my daughter and me to crawl into a small burrow on his land each night to sleep with the rats. They cuddled around us, and I was grateful for their warmth."
"I didn't know what to do or how I was going to care for my 10-year-old daughter," Maria shares. "I was determined not to beg for food or money. I had never been poor before. We found food here and there and lived in the clothes on our back. I was depressed and desperate. The very day that I gave up and said, 'Tomorrow I will have to beg; I have no choice,' ADRA found us."
ADRA has provided Maria with clothes, shoes, boots, hygiene items, bleach, rice, lentils, cooking oil, and eggs. "Today, we live in a small shanty. The owner moved away and gave it to us," Maria shares.
While we are providing care and training to Colombian refugees living in Ecuador, more is needed. The ADRA Ecuador program would like to begin offering microloans to women who complete the ADRA training programs, who have a clear passion and desire to succeed, and who have the commitment to undertake a small business of their own.
"Right now, I have no gas for cooking and no electricity. I work hard cutting down weeds with the machete or taking in laundry. I am willing to do any honest work. The most important thing is that my daughter is in school, for my Lorena is everything in my life now.
"Although I am depressed by my present life circumstances," Maria says, "ADRA has made all the difference for Lorena and me. Every time Ignacio (the ADRA Ecuador country director) comes to visit, he brings hope and light to my life. ADRA is helping me help myself."
