Have you ever been surprised by the pain that comes from God’s heart breaking? Today I felt it. We pray all the time for God to break our hearts for what breaks his, but that is such a heavy prayer. His heart is constantly breaking for all the injustice in the world. He is constantly burdened for his children who are being oppressed and afflicted. And I believe he desires for the end of those things to come just as we do. But his timing is perfect and he WILL arise and bring justice to the nations.
Today we spent our forth day at an orphanage here in Puerto Barrios, Guatemala.
At first we were just playing with the kids and then we came back to do some physical labor in cleaning the place up. The spiritual darkness of that place was so evident. We immediately recognized that what we were doing in the natural (pulling up roots, cleaning, cutting weeds, picking up trash, etc) was representing what God was doing and going to do in the spiritual. These kids live in worse conditions than I have ever seen. They have no running water and barely any food to eat. The orphanage is privately owned with a lot of corruption and darkness within the leadership.
The little girl on the right side of the photo above is named Julie. She is absolutely beautiful and has such a sweet spirit. Today, my heart was completely broken for her. We found out that many of the girls have been sexually abused, her being one of the main ones. She is ten years old. As we were leaving today she gave me a hug goodbye and would not let go. Even when I tried to speak to her, she clung to my waist and wouldn’t even look up. I can barely right this without crying. I tried to sit down with her so I could pray with her and just keep hugging her and she stayed put. As I was praying for her and just holding her so tightly, I began to weep. Everything in me was breaking. I could feel her pain and her desperation for someone to love her. We sat hugging for a long moment and then I had to leave. Even as we left, she was still so full of life and joy. I am so excited to continue to work with the orphanage and bring more light to such a dark place. I keep crying out for justice in the lives of these kids, especially in Julie’s. I believe that God has HUGE things he wants to do in that place. The most disgusting things we’ve done so far have been at this place, but it doesn’t even feel like anything because of our desire to serve these beautiful kids. Kids that belong to our same Father. AH! My heart is so full of love for them.
Every time I realize that this is their life and they aren’t at some kind of camp where their parents will pick them up in a week, it becomes more and more real that they have no one and how much they need the love of the Father. We were all really concerned about spending a month with them and then just leaving them, like everyone else in their life. We didn’t want to cause more harm than good. But yesterday one of my teammates said something that just gave me goosebumps (the good kind). She said that God revealed to her that if we would introduce them to Him, He would become their father and their mother and that He will never leave them or hurt them as everyone else in this world has. If we leave them with something even greater than ourselves, we will have definitely helped them more than we could imagine.
Please keep these kids in your prayers and pray for our team as we are in battle everyday.
