Important News:
– I succumbed to peer pressure and got my nose pierced…sorry mom.
– I feel much better after taking my first deworming pill (Hopefully the spicy curry will scorch any remaining parasites).
– So far I’ve been able to evade the rats living in the home. Cows aren’t the only animals they let roam free here.
In many ways I feel like I’m back in China. In China I would wake up in the night absolutely petrified. I started leaving the bathroom light on so I wouldn’t be so afraid if I woke up. On one occassion I awoke to black cloudy shapes hovering over me. The town we lived in was gloomy and sad and we were always cold. By the end of China it felt like the Lord was long gone, and I couldn’t feel His presence at all. It was a hard month! Then we got to Africa and warmth filled my body and soul, and joy filtered back in. And the Lord did amazing things. There were hardships there as well but not like China…not like here.
There are idols everywhere. The air is thick with pollution and incense. There are shapes and symbols and beliefs, and what we’re supposed to do and what we’re not supposed to do – we’re living in a home for prostitutes that have come off the streets.
The youngest girl in the home is only twelve years old, and she has burns on her face and hands. Her mother began selling her out as a prostitute at who knows what age. Her grandmother brought her to the home because she was being raped too often. She is just a little girl.
Our team experienced unity and growth in Tanzania, but as soon as we got into India we started to struggle.
Even still there is such beauty here, hovering under the heaviness. I am coming to deeply care for the girls, and trying to take one day at a time.
So I talk to the Lord and worship even when I don’t feel Him near, and thank Him that I get to live this life.
Onward and onward…
