Evelyn is fairly sure that most people who go to church, and even most people who work at a church, are not conceiving of themselves as the next Joan of Arc. She doesn't say this. It seems like it would be hard to communicate across the language barrier and also wouldn't help. 

"I think there are food banks run by churches, yeah. There are also some run by charities that aren't churches, because not everyone goes to church, and people who aren't religious might feel awkward about going to a church just to get free food." 

"Okay. Maybe tomorrow I go these banks, see if safe, then tell everyone go there. And Martin, who try me, he is fed by rich country, until law comes? And then I swear on Bible again about what happen?"

"We can do that." They'll have to bring Lily, it's a Saturday, but a tour of church food banks in Reno is probably something Lily would love, actually.

...Lily should probably not accompany them on a mission to go find the people Iomedae knows in a migrant labor camp? Evelyn - will cross that bridge when they come to it, she decides. She definitely can't let Iomedae go do it alone, and - it seems like this is important to her, like she feels a lot of loyalty to the people who, from her point of view, must have taken her in and helped her figure out how to survive in her new situation. It's not actually going to be the weirdest thing Evelyn has ever done to help a child settle with her. 

"Martin is the name of the man who tried to hurt you? ...I think there are laws about how the government can treat people in jail and prison, because it's - because the guards in the jail have a lot of power over them, and if there aren't rules about it then some guards would hurt the prisoners just because they can. And one of the rules is that they have to have food, it's not like it's a very big expense compared to the building and the guards. ...I would have to go look up what the exact rules are, if you want to know them." 

"A good rule. Holy warriors also have rules about prisoners. That is why I have to feed him, if the government not feed him."

"That makes sense. ...Where did you learn what the rules are for, uh, holy warriors? Is that in the Bible?"

(Evelyn doesn't remember it but she hasn't read all of the Bible, and only really knows the parts that were covered in Sunday School forty years ago, or that get read out at Christmas and Easter. To be fair there's a lot of Bible. Also she thinks some religious sects, like the Mormons, have special Bibles with extra books?) 

"My father-brother is a holy warrior of God. He fight in, I don't have the words. The holy fight with Tar-Baphon. He die. He fight in Heaven now. When he alive, he visit, and he tell me all about holy warrior of God and all the rules."

UM??????

Evelyn…is too tired for this conversation, mostly, as usual she’s up with Lily since 6 am. She’s trying to keep what is now a pretty big pile of future lot notes in her head, and a pretty big pile of emotions somewhere she won’t be unfairly making them Iomedae’s problem.

Maybe “Tarbafon” is the word for Satan in her language, and her brother was - traveling as a missionary? Right, isn't there a thing where in some insular religious sects, the boys leave as young adults to travel and proselytize (and the girls, presumably, are kept at home and ignorant and shunted into arranged marriages, and good for Iomedae for avoiding that fate). She's not sure how someone manages to die on a proselytizing mission, maybe he went to South America and got a tropical disease. ...Evelyn should stop speculating about things she can't verify yet and that aren't the point, the point is the teenage girl sitting in front of her, who is lost and confused in a system that makes no sense to her and whose brother is dead. Evelyn feels kind of squicky about the part where her affect seems to be that it's okay for him to have fucking died on a mission, because now he's continuing to do God's work in Heaven, but it's not her place to question Iomedae's faith and it does seem to be bringing her some kind of closure and peace. 

"That makes sense. I'm sorry to hear your brother died. It sounds like he was a very good role model," would she know that word? ugh how would you say 'role model' in Spanish? "- dador de consejos, for you, when you were younger?" 

*Giver of advice

"Father-brother. I like him lots. Most people, you ask them 'why you not save everyone in Hell' and they say 'no one can do that' or 'they are bad, that is why they go to Hell' or 'who knows God's plan'. But he says to me, I not strong enough yet."

That's...somewhat concerning as advice to give a young kid, but it's clearly advice that landed well for Iomedae, and - well, it's vastly better than 'bad people deserve to be in Hell', and Evelyn is also not super on board with 'who can know God's plan?' which, you know, can be used to rationalize why it's fine that children get cancer because it must have been in God's plan. 

"Your father's brother, not your brother? The word in English for that is 'uncle'." And what else to say to that... "I think that's good advice. And - I think your uncle would want you to be stronger so you can help more people, and in America that means you need to go to school."

She is possibly harping on this point too much but it would be such a tragic waste of potential if this kid ran away from foster care and slipped back under the radar so she could work for less than minimum wage and spend half her meagre earnings on feeding other children. ...Maybe it would be a good idea for her to see if the director of a church food bank is willing to talk to Iomedae, actually, and tell her what kinds of qualifications they need for their job. Evelyn doesn't actually know very much about that but presumably they need to know, like, how to manage finances and meet legal compliance requirements for a charity, which Evelyn certainly couldn't do. 

“I’m not smart enough to be a - person like God is who can change all the rules with study - and I already know writing and numbers. I need to learn holy warrior things but if you don’t know holy warriors I don’t know the school will have that.”

That's not an angle on Jesus that Evelyn has heard before but she...kind of likes it? It sounds a lot more like - the sort of thing where Jesus is a role model to emulate, where 'what would Jesus do' aims you in the direction of systemic reform and advocacy or whatever, and not the kind of Christianity where all humans are worthless sinners who need to throw themselves on God's mercy. 

"I think there are a lot of ways to be a holy warrior for God," she says, carefully. "And if you want to do what God would want in America, and feed children, you need to know - more things than how to add and subtract and fight with a sword. The people who work at churches to bring food to poor children need to know how to keep track of their money and make sure it isn't being wasted or stolen, and know how to follow the law for how charities can spend money, and figure out which places have lots of hungry children so it's worth having a food bank in that place. Also you don't know how to read in English yet and that's important." 

"Oh, yes, I should learn to read and know how to follow the law. I know how to track money. The school teaches how to figure out which places have lots of hungry children?"

...Honestly, probably not very efficiently. Evelyn can suddenly perfectly picture Iomedae sitting in high school English being politely bemused and internally frustrated about how essays on symbolism in Shakespeare have nothing to do with feeding hungry children at all. 

"I think there are - a lot of pieces - you need to understand about the world if you want to do hard projects like that, because the world is very big and complicated. For that particular thing you would need to do geography, which is - where places are on maps, but there's more to it than that - and history, and civics, which is how the government works - do you know that word? Uh, gobierno, I think, people who are chosen by a vote to lead the country and make decisions about what laws to have and how to spend the government's money on things like roads and hospitals. And you probably need statistics, which is math but it's a lot harder than addition and subtraction. And money is more complicated if it's a charity instead of just for you, and if you have a lot of it in a bank."

Iomedae has probably only ever been paid under the table in cash, and - plausibly her family more or less didn't earn money and just lived off farming like the Amish do?  

"Holy orders have classes in the things I need to know to be a holy warrior. Are there no holy orders here at all?"

The people she'd travelled with earlier thought there were, including women's orders, though they didn't know any details and didn't know of women's orders that were for paladins rather than priests.

Evelyn finds herself trying to picture Iomedae in a nunnery and has to try very hard not to make a face. Iomedae would be unimpressed by nuns. As Jeremy would put it, they wouldn't be nearly ""hardcore"" enough for her taste. 

"There...are? But I think maybe not the kind you mean. There are places people can go if they want to do some good works and spend a lot of time praying to God, but I think you want - bigger things than that. Also I think you normally need to be eighteen." 

Her best guess is still that Iomedae is talking about missionaries traveling to poorer countries - that doesn't quite land right either, but it would make sense if Iomedae doesn't actually know that much about the "holy orders" she left home to seek out, and is making guesses based on how she thinks and relates to her faith. Evelyn knows very few things about that and also doesn't feel nearly ready for that conversation.

...Though also she can't avoid it forever and it's starting to itch. There's a careful balance with any child, avoiding telling them things that are inappropriate for a child their age to hear, while also - being someone they can trust - and Evelyn has a feeling that it would be very bad for Iomedae's trust in her if she were to find out that Evelyn had been strategically not telling her some things about the world for her own good. 

"Sometimes people from a church do charity work where they go to other countries where people have less money," she says, carefully. "And they build schools and hospitals there, and they found churches and tell people about God. But I think those groups also want you to have already done school when you join." 

"And to have such blessings from God that illness cannot touch you," says Iomedae, because she does know some things about how missionary orders work. "Even if the holy orders would not take me yet - and I think they might, since I am chosen by God - they could tell me which things are most important to learn."

Oh no is she from one of those sects that believes in faith healing. Evelyn has no idea how to respond to this diplomatically without sounding like she's criticizing Iomedae's birth family or her faith. Mmmmmmaybe she can just make sure she finds Iomedae someone to talk to for advice who has more moderate beliefs? She thinks most of the people in charge of competent well-run charities, even if they're Christian charities, are probably the sort of people who believe God is with them in a more...metaphorical...way, and believe that God is in favor of taking anti-malarial drugs if you're a missionary in Africa or whatever. 

"Mmm," Evelyn says. "I think we should take some time to work on improving your English, so you won't spend so much time being confused, and then I'll see if I can find someone from a missionary order who can talk to you." 

"Thank you. If I work at a food bank I can learn English working."

Iomedae absolutely believes in faith healing. Also in paladins becoming immune to disease at the same strength where they become immune to fear. She also believes that when you get stronger than that you get a magic horse. She doesn't have the vocabulary to discuss any of that, though.

She definitely can't– ....actually, is there a particularly good reason she can't? Well, it would be a huge headache for her to have a paid job, since she doesn't have any documentation yet, but she can volunteer. Getting some volunteer hours in the community is actually a requirement for graduation at the local high school (though it's not very difficult to waive), and if Jeremy had expressed a strong desire to volunteer at a food bank, Evelyn would have been 100% behind it as long as he was still keeping up in his schoolwork. Iomedae is of course massively behind in her schoolwork, but she might be more cooperative about all these pointless-seeming-to-her bureaucratic hoops she suddenly has to jump through if she also gets to do some direct good work now. Possibly Iomedae's social worker will object but Evelyn is pretty sure she can win that argument. 

"I think they couldn't pay you because you don't have papers," she says, "but if you wanted to volunteer - help out without being paid - at a food bank, I would be very proud of you. And they would be able to spend more of their money on other things." 

"You need papers to get paid, but no papers to work for no pay? I can do that. I can do that and school because you have -" she points at the lightbulb.

"I think they probably have some paperwork, but the papers saying that you live with me should be enough? Charities have to be more careful about who they pay, because the government checks if they're doing anything against the law with the money that rich people gave them for helping poor people, and paying someone who doesn't have papers is technically illegal."

Though of course Iomedae knows that some people were willing to pay her anyway, and Evelyn isn't actually sure whether she feels like it's morally wrong to pay illegal immigrants if you aren't, like, exploiting them. That sounds like a complicated conversation and she's not going to go there unless Iomedae keeps pushing. 

She looks concerned about that, actually! "It is illegal pay people who don't have papers?"

Oh no poor kid. 

"Yeah. I know it happens a lot anyway, in places where it's hard for the government to check. I don't think you did anything wrong by getting paid, and you aren't going to be in trouble. The people who gave you money might get in trouble, but - I think if they did something wrong, it's mostly because they pay workers who don't have papers less than they would have to pay people who do, and treat them badly." 

"If it is illegal it is wrong. Is it illegal to take money with no papers? I can give the money back, but I spend some, I no have it all." And she reaches into her shirt and pulls out - several hundred dollars in neat bundles of fives. "This is half, I spend half."

Holy fuck. That's a lot of money. Has Iomedae just been walking around all this time with several hundred dollars in her shirt??? Also, wow, she saved that much money while earning under the table fruit-picking wages and also feeding other people's children? It...makes more sense now that Iomedae thinks she knows how to manage money! Holy fuck.

(...Evelyn makes a mental note that, while she generally tries quite hard not to set a bad example with her foster children by swearing in front of them, she should try extra extra hard not to use religious-toned swearwords in front of Iomedae, who would probably be mortified.) 

Evelyn also thinks that it's at least complicated whether something illegal is always morally wrong, but the only example coming to mind is "is it wrong to hide Jews from the Nazis" and she is absolutely not having that conversation right now. 

"I...don't actually know what the right thing is to do with the money," she says, calmly. "You didn't know the people paying you were breaking the law, and I'm still not sure if you were breaking the law, you might not have been. I can talk to your social worker tomorrow and ask what we should do."