Hola amigos! Estamos en El Salvador ahora y disfrutabamos
nuestro tiempo aqui.
Ok ok, sorry… I’ll switch to English now. 🙂 Translation: Hey friends! We’re in El
Salvador now and we’ve been enjoying our time here.
We left Honduras early Monday morning (4:30am to be exact…
and yup, you guessed it… I didn’t sleep a wink before leaving. Monopoly and
spending time with Henry and the boys for the last few hours sounded way better
than sleep.) Those were some hard goodbyes to say the least. But alas, God has
a plan and I have a feeling I’ll be finding my way back to Honduras at some
point. 🙂
A short six hour bus ride had us into our next country and a
whole new ministry for the month – a pretty quick turnaround compared to our
usual three to five travel days in between countries. We arrived and were
warmly greeted by Bob, our amazing contact. He started an orphanage here with
his wife a few years back called Mi Casa (check em out here: http://www.micasakids.org/link2.php )
and it’s amazing to see the ways they’ve truly cultivated a family here. It
doesn’t feel like an orphanage at all; it’s a home (“hogar� en espanol).
There are about fifteen kids living here right now and they
come from all different backgrounds; most of them don’t have any other family
and have been taken out of situations of neglect, abuse, incest, etc. They have
a girls house and a boys house right across the street from each other and they
treat all of them like their kids; they all go to school, have to do their
homework before anything else, and live with a couple of house moms that love
them like their own. They call Bob “Tio Bobby� (Uncle Bobby) or “Dad,� which
just shows the type of relationship they have with one another. The discipline/
boundaries that kids need growing up is present right along with the
unconditional love of a family. It’s a pretty sweet situation and I feel super
blessed to be able to live (yup, we’re living in the girls’ house with the
little ones), love, and work alongside them this month.
The kids have had the last three days off of school because
Obama came for some sort of drug conference/ summit, so we’ve been able to
spend some quality time just chillen and getting to know them. Yesterday we went
to the BEACH as a little outing – so fun! We saw/ boogie boarded/ played in
some of the biggest waves I’ve seen (and I got caught in a pretty fierce rip
tide at one point… oops! Thank the Lord for His provision!) We also took some
nice walks on the beach, played in the pool, relaxed in hammocks, and I had
some amazing time with the Lord while watching the sunset. God is so good. 🙂 On the way home one of the little girls I’ve
connected with, Angelica, simply laid her head in my lap and slept there the whole
way home; my heart is so full of love for these children already – they are
simply precious.
This month will mostly be focused on building relationships
with the kids and loving on them as much as possible – sweet! I’m excited about
that. 🙂 We’ll also be doing some deep cleaning and painting projects around
the house, including a few murals that Kirsten will be heading up (she’s an
amazing artist so I’m excited to come alongside her and help with that!) Some
ideas we have already are: a big tree with hand and footprints from the kids,
nature scenes (mountains, beaches, rivers, etc), banners with scripture verses
on them, etc. Who knows what we’ll end up doing but I’m excited for the
opportunity to be creative and see what happens! 🙂
Well, that’s about all I have for now. I can’t believe I’ll
be seeing you all so soon… crazy! Please continue to keep us all in your
prayers about the future and about what God wants us to do with our lives; we
know He has great plans and we simply need to trust, but sometimes it’s nice to
get little glimpses into what that looks like. 🙂
Speaking of that… I have a PRAISE REPORT!! I know what I’ll be doing for a period of time
after the race, yay! A job opened up
with the summer feeding program I’ve been working with for about the last
thirteen years of my life so I’ll be there for another summer, woo! It’s a
program called Food, Friends, and Fun
that packs and delivers meals (primarily lunches) to underprivileged kids in a
nearby inner-city; it’s a supplemental program for kids who receive free or
reduced lunches through the school systems during the year but have a hard time
finding food in the summer. It’s a great program and I’m excited to be working
there once again – it feels like home. 🙂 In fact, I’ll be living at home in
Wilbraham with my parents (free rent – thank you, Jesus!) for the summer and
most likely traveling into Boston on the weekends to visit family, friends, go
to church, and play some volleyball – yay! It feels like the perfect fit and I’m
super grateful for God’s divine provision and so many answered prayers – thank
you, Jesus!
The feeding program only runs for about eight weeks so it
will be done by the end of August and I’ll be left once more with a question
mark above my head about what God wants me to do next. I’m still thinking about
leading a Real Life trip with AIM in the fall, but I need to continue praying
about that. God’s got it all… I know this. It just takes continual trust,
faith, and surrender to HIS plans for our lives instead of our own. I trust you, Jesus!
“‘For I know the plans I have for you.’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to
prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you HOPE and a FUTURE. Then you
will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and FIND me when you seek
me with ALL YOUR HEART’� (Jeremiah 29:11-13).
