This.
Hope for the World.
My heart.
This month was awesome! Hope for the World is an organization that partners with orphanages. Specifically, the center that we were at was a home that children that grew up in the orphanage system were able to stay at while they attended their three years of high school.
We were living with 10 teenagers.
We were their older sisters. We joked about being their moms. This whole month we joked that this ministry was preparing us to be moms.
We played games, celebrated birthdays, ate food, sightsaw, and evangelized with these kids. Our kids.
And that is only stuff that we did with them. Aside from being with them we went and evangelized in the city, we visited quite a few orphanages, we visited different churches, we gardened, we cleaned a church, we made house visits, and we learned about national history in the country.
We would go out and do whatever the ministry was for the day and then we would come home to our ministry, our relationships, our family at home.
We would drive in from the day and talk about getting to see our kids.
Our kids.
Our heart.
On our final morning there our team woke up earlier to see our kids off for the last time.
There we were in the driveway with all of our children in the van, about to be driven to school. This was our last time seeing them.
We totally felt like mothers, seeing our children off to school.
Yes, there were plenty of tears. *which may or may not have started with me* 🙂
This month, my heart was completely taken. On day one, I looked at Martha and told her that I could see myself at this ministry- it was the first one on the Race that I can actually see myself being a part of. My heart was stolen from day one.
Throughout the month, I felt like God was telling me that I am going to return to Albania. I am going to return to Hope for the World. I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know how long it will be. I don’t know really anything, but I know that I’ll be back.
And for that, I am so excited!
<3 Ash
