Winter cold shrouded her in her woolen shawl. Malilly clutched it tightly around her arms over her shoulders. Biting cold whistled across the rooftop and the stars absorbed the howling of the wind through tall forest trees. The air was icy outside. Untold threats and pending disasters in this human-made nightmare plunged Malilly into a greater fear and a sharper pain than weather’s storms could ever cause. Malilly shuffled over to the thermostat and raised the temperature of the house.
The children were all asleep in their beds, cozy warm underneath their blankets. She stayed awake because she wanted to be comforted by the house as it withstood the winter ice. It was her and the house, her first house. She felt comforted by the beams that the floors were built upon. There was no husband in it with her most of the time. Malilly had done everything herself until there was nothing more to do. Ganad had gone to work again. He often worked triple shifts to make the extra money they needed.
Malilly couldn’t go to bed without him. She hated to be apart. Keeping the house warm at night was a luxury. Guilt and worry filled Malilly until she couldn’t burn the oil anymore for her reprise. So, she got back up and turned it off. She forced herself to get to bed. She hated going to bed on a day that hadn’t ended. Where was Ganad? Was he safe? She turned on her phone and made a few bizarre comments on Twitter and then looked at the foolish celebrities that all took social media so seriously.
The light sucked her in. In the pitch-black freezing winter night, underneath her blankets in an empty room Malilly scrolled through the endless internet feeds, YouTube, and it numbed her mind. When the light started to hurt her eyes, she clicked off her phone in exhaustion and rested. She said a little prayer with the slightest breath from her lips that, “God, I hope I wake up Tomorrow. Take care of Ganad. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.” Flashes of light and the comfort of her house mingled beneath her eyelids until her sleep was nothing but black.
Morning came with the confusion of a bad dream that Malilly couldn’t shake off her mind. The kids, little angels, arose and washed up for school. Yesterday, Malilly had received an email from the Principal that her children had been misplaced. They were in their correct grades but the Principal wanted them to be in a grade lower. She had tried to tell him that they were just fine where they were and that they just needed some time to adjust to their new school. He had sent an emailed document about it to her and she knew that Ganad probably wouldn’t argue because it was important for the kids to go to school. She looked at the smart adorable faces of her son and daughter at the breakfast table. It would hurt them if she allowed this Principal to put them into a lower grade.
Eventually, Ganad and Malilly did agree with the Principal that the kids would continue school with his requirement that they attend at a lower grade level. Everyday after school that year the children would come home and tell her with sadness in their eyes that they were so bored in class and always learning the same thing over instead of learning something new. With a broken heart, Malilly witnessed the evil of community prejudice in her small mountain town and with her every last effort she broke off from them that summer.
It was her decision to homeschool the children out of the hell that the Principal and the community around her family had deliberated for them to suffer. She homeschooled her children to their correct grade levels. When they moved out of that village and city and state the next year, Malilly fought for her beautiful children to attend a good school with a Principal who had his head on straight. Ganad had also been broken and was suffering greatly. By the faith of Heavenly Father, Jesus, and True Parents – the trinity of God – Malilly and Ganad were able to fight triumphantly over Satan’s people, Satan’s hell, and Satan’s governments that do exist here in the United States of America right now.
For this miraculous leap that God had prepared, they cut off their home and their jobs from Satan’s hellish chains of brokenness and misery, a rotten community. Ganad and Malilly sought whatever remaining freedom there was to be had in America. They took a giant leap in His Good Faith and landed here on His Solid Foundation as witnesses of miracle after miracle.
~ Somiya
Somiya Chapman 