She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy.
To the mother who is raising a beautiful daughter of God, thank you for letting me play with her, for the smile that you have built in her. She has impacted my life in more ways that you know.
I think It is funny how many times I got told that often the people would impact me more often than I would impact them on this trip. I honestly did believe them. It made sense that the people I interact with would impact my life. Month 1 and oh how that has already happened.
Meet Kristal…
First time I meet her it was our first Sunday and our team ended up entering the small church at different times. We ended up sitting in different areas, some together and some of us spread out. I had been standing for worship listening to the music and the words even though I couldn’t understand much of the Spanish. I got catch up in my thoughts in how I wasn’t going to make connections with people and just couldn’t connect with my team. I closed my eyes and just tried to remind myself that it was just the beginning, relationships take time. Once you are in a spiral it’s hard to get out of it when evil has so much ammunition. Then I opened my eyes and saw this sweet girl beaming from ear-to-ear at me. That was the start, she proceeded to wave and talk to me in Spanish which I only understood half of it and could only respond to half of that. She just grabbed my hand and said “amigo?”. Every weekend I would see Kristal at the kid’s club or church, and every time, I would try so hard to talk to her. In a lot of ways, I would fail and she wouldn’t understand me as much as I didn’t understand her. Yet every weekend she would smile and wave at me pursuing me and wanting to play with me with such patience.
It was funny how she would play hand games and I would lose all track of the negative things I had been thinking. It was uplifting to feel loved by this sweet little girl who knew nothing about me. It was this last Saturday that we were all at Tony and Rosita’s; I was sitting on the front porch when I had been praying about my time in Costa Rica and wondering if I had done any good this month. When out of nowhere, Kristal and her mom walk up to the church waving at me. She ran up hugged me and kissed me on the check and then proceeded to speak super crazy fast, grab my hand, and then ran away back to her mom.
It was in that moment that it made so much sense, this little girl in so many ways was put in my path to show me more of God’s love. Every time I was struggling or feeling down, she would pop up and lift my spirits. No matter how annoying It became with not understanding each other, she continuously pursued and loved me with no strings attached. Funny how that is exactly the way the lord is, he loves us and no matter the mistakes made or misunderstanding that happen, he is there to love and pursue us.
Every time she saw me she would beam with love and excitement to play with me and to get to know me. The Lord wants to know me and wants me to be comfortable with him. He wants to be my friend and wants that relationship. It’s not about how many holes I dug, or how many people I spoke the gospel to this month; but my relationship with the Lord, learning from him, and being grateful that it’s not about what I am doing if I am open to growth in all kinds of ways.
SIDE NOTE: I am currently 11,210 RAISED!!! I couldn’t be more grateful for the amazing anonymous donor but also to everyone else who has donated ever bit has added up to me being closer and closer to my goal thank you so so much!!
I am still 1,790 away from my end of November 13,000 goal and would be so grateful for prayer and support in that! Thank you so much!!
