To say that I enjoy chocolate would be an understatement. It’s more along the lines of; I love, desire, crave, am addicted to chocolate. I can even remember when this addiction started; it was my last semester in college and all of a sudden I was stopping by the gas station 3 or 4 times a week to pick up a candy bar. Awful, I know. I’m not sure why my love for chocolate grew so much that semester, but my craving for chocolate is still very much with me.
With all of that said, I knew coming on the race I would have to give up a lot of things and I was thinking that chocolate would be one of them, so I prepared myself. However, I arrived in Antigua only to find tiendas on every corner that sold chocolate. Praise be to God. So with each month I have bought a certain chocolate treat to eat a couple times a week. Month one it was these candy bars called Granada, month two it was Snickers, month three it was Oreos, month four it was hot chocolate.
Then there is month five. Cambodia. We are staying about 20 minutes out of town, but we have Saturdays off. Which means, on Saturday I can buy 2 candy bars and stock up for the week. Once again, I know this is awful. So last Saturday I bought 2 Crunch bars and decided that I would eat one Tuesday and one Thursday. I was excited.
Today my team and I were preparing Valentines Day gifts for the women and children at the women’s home we are working at this month. We bought chocolate hearts for each of them and had decided we would decorate their names and tape them to the hearts. So, we got ready to decorate the names, and we counted the hearts to make sure we had enough; we bought 14 hearts…but there are 16 people living here. We tried to brainstorm for a minute to figure out what to do, then Kenra asked if anybody had bought any chocolate. Remember those 2 candy bars I was saving for Tuesday and Thursday? Yehhhh. God had other plans for them.
I told Kenra about my candy bars and told her we could use those. As sad as I was that I would not be able to have chocolate until Saturday I knew God had planned all along for those candy bars to be for someone else.
This morning when we gave the chocolate to everyone here, I knew they would enjoy that chocolate more than I could have. And I prayed that somehow God would use that chocolate as a way for them to experience His love on Valentines Day. After all, He is the one who loves greater than anyone on this earth could ever fathom.
I have already lived Valentines Day 2012. But I want to challenge you to not only show love to your family and friends but also to the strangers you come in contact with, this Valentines Day and the ones to come. Let’s show everyone who is the greatest lover of all!
Praying the love of God will move through you this Valentines Day,
Caitlyn
Pidigcheg and Utdom sending their love from a village somewhere in Cambodia. =)
p.s. my AMAZING team leader Kenra went out during the day and bought tons of chocolate and goodies for Leanna and me. Which means, the Lord blessed me ten fold through Kenra this Valentines Day. =)
