She is a Daughter, Mother, Partner & Friend

By: Susi

People seldom smile as she walks by, preferring instead to avert their gaze. Violence and death are possible every time she welcomes a stranger.

How true and it happened again, it is so sad.....we lost one of our girls again, this time it was SHELLEY, 44 years old from Surrey. Her body was found in Coquitlam in September 2006 by a person out for a morning walk.

Last year (2005), someone walking their dog found MICHELLE's body in a vacant lot in the 7300-block of King George Highway. Michelle was also in her 40s, she was always very friendly, very caring towards the other girls & quite street wise.

She would tell us how she loved receiving a rosary with the "smiling Jesus". One cold evening she shared the only pair of gloves she had with another girl, each of them only wearing one glove on one hand & the other hand in the pocket to keep the hand warm. She was quite a character.

Months after her death some of us who knew her still turned our heads we passed that area at the corner of King George & 81 Ave where Michelle used to stand.

We attended the mass we offered for her soul at St Bernadette church.

Sept 11th 2004 the body of CHARITY was found in Abbotsford. She was a sweet pretty young woman, she was also a mother. A few weeks before she was murdered she mentioned to one of our teams that she was frightened of somebody.

We attended her Memorial Tree Planting Service in a field beside the Front Room, well attended by the homeless, some of the girls, South Fraser Community Services & Hope in Action.

2003 when we just started walking in Surrey we heard that LANA had also
being murdered.

Our girls live such a dangerous life, every time they step in a stranger's car they can be facing violence & even death, some of them get strangled, some get raped, some get stabbed to death.

Each of them is somebody's daughter, mother, partner and friend. Like us, they also worry about their loved ones, cry when they are sad, laugh when they are happy. Sometimes they can be brave, sometimes frightened, sometimes considerate, sometimes selfish. They are human like you and I, they also have feelings like you and I. One evening when we gave her a big hug on the side of the road where she worked, eyes filled with tears, she mumbled: "I thought nobody cares".

We keep reminding them that GOD LOVES THEM and WE LOVE THEM TOO, WE SHARE WITH THEM GOD'S AGAPE LOVE, LOVE THAT WON'T EXPECT ANYTHING IN RETURN.