They say a picture says a thousand words! I absolutely love these of our little ones, taken a couple of weeks ago during a campus wide event!
This was taken on New Year's Eve.....fireworks galore!!!! It was such a loud night but so much fun! We had two teams here and they gracious made the entire campus dinner and then we enjoyed worship together and of course the finale was a HUGE fireworks show! It was a beautiful way to ring in the New Year!
So much has happened in our short time back and I'm not sure exactly how to communicate all that God has done! Our first six months were so challenging and my stomach turned as we boarded our plane to return to Guatemala....unsure of the challenges that would surely await us! But I was more confident than ever that God had called us and annointed this time for us to serve at Casa Bernabe....and that alone brought a great deal of peace, still my flesh was insecure!
As we flew I grew more and more relaxed and a peace that I cannot even begin to describe covered me and has continued to this day!
We hit the ground running! Southwest Baptist University had just arrived and so we dropped our luggage off and ran to do orientation for this 11th SBU team! It was so exciting for me to have this as my first assignment as I graduated from SBU and was a member of the first ever Casa Bernabe team. Just participating in that orientation brought such encouragement to my heart....and brought back so many amazing memories of ALL that God ALMIGHTY has done these 11 years.
From there we've been diving in....Stefan to his homeschool and me to learning more and more about Social Work in Guatemala. I feel a renewed passion to be a voice, to impart resources and to just be a part of the process that each child walks through.
I am excited to be able to delegate some of my public relations responsibilities to a sweet couple from a local church and to instead be able to jump into mentoring our young women. The road that we've been on over the past few months has been such an adventure but it's so exciting to see where God has brought us and to experience the anticipation of where He's taking us.
About three months ago God laid the word RESTORATION on my heart. That word has been burnt on my heart but the process has left me speechless....without answers....as my good friend McKenzie would say...."it's left me pensive." How do we take these kids from our door up the mountain to the summit of RESTORATION? What should that process look like? HOW in the world do we connect intimately with each child we serve in order to come alongside them in the process?
Pray for us as we continue to ponder and as we enter 2010 with a focus of RESTORATION in every life/heart on our mountainside....children and adults alike. For the next 40 days we will focus on Forgiveness.....both experiencing it and rendering it....please pray for open hearts and a readiness in our children to both receive and render forgiveness. Please pray for our adults that we will be a reflection of the HEART of the ALMIGHTY and that they will see daily expressions of forgiveness in our lives/hearts/families.
More to come....
