Our team is spending the rest of this month living at a YWAM base here in Medellin in an orphanage/kids home with boys and girls, coming along side the staff doing anything from kitchen/food prep, spending time with the boys and girls helping with homework and English, and hanging out with them. We are rotating and so we have a chance to work with both. I was hesitant about being with the boys, I connect with girls and that’s where my heart tends to gravitate towards and they are just more affectionate honestly ha. God has totally surprised me though because these boys here, they have so much LOVE to give. It has totally blown me away and I’m enamored by them and I’m really going to be sad to leave them at the end of the month.
I think about the word orphan and what that means and how that feels. I spent most of my life feeling a little orphaned and a huge sense of abandonment in having no relationship with my real father who essentially turned his back on me and whom I haven’t talked to in a very long time. God took me through the process of reconciling and forgiveness and fully trusting that this is not who my God is and this absolutely is not who God is to these kids here.
He has created this safe environment for them to sleep, be fed, staff who invest in them and care about their well being, but most of all a place to learn and grow in the knowledge of God’s character and his love for them.
I don’t know all the stories of where all these kids come from. They come from poor families, parents who can’t properly take care of them, some with no parents and some only with one for one reason or another. What I do know is I will love them as hard as I can. I will give them as many hugs as I can. I will say I love you as much as I can. I will smile at them as much as I can which will hopefully speak more than what the language barrier hinders me from being able to convey at times.
If I walk away from here and even one child feels seen and loved….If you were to ask me right now, I would absolutely say this month is a success!
No child is an orphan in the eyes of the Lord. I pray that they will grow up into men and women who despite what the world tells them, know without a shadow of a doubt that there’s a God who calls them sons and daughters. They have purpose to fulfill and by the grace of God they will walk in that purpose each and every day of their lives.
The orphan spirit will not even take root in their being because the blood shed for them covers all that and they were bought with a price and with a love that runs so deep for them that it washes all that away…..
And healing the orphaned heart.
