I Can't Leave Yet

For some reason this week I have been crying much more than usual. Maybe it's because I'm only staying here for one week, or maybe it's because I prayed that God would break my heart for what breaks His and He has fulfilled that prayer as completely as possible. But either way, I told myself today would be a fun day. We were going to go to one of the special needs orphanages for older kids, and then off to the boys orphanage for an afternoon of soccer and Bible stories!

Instead, I cried everywhere. I cried at the special needs orphanage because I was sad that they had to live in smelly rooms. And also because I could only dance with them one day. Then we found out we could not go to the boys orphanage so we went to visit a family Sus Hijos built a house for in March. They built the house for a woman and her grandson that she takes care of who is 15 and weighs about 20 pounds. No one knows why he can't gain weight, so we don't know how to help them. It broke my heart. I cried thinking about the fact that he would never get to play sports, I cried about how happy I was to have met him because he and his grandmother loved God so much. I cried because I take everything for granted and they do not. I cried because I want to spend my summer building houses for families like that. I was just so extremely heart broken. And I thank God that He sent us to that family today.

For dinner we had a special treat: we were the first to eat at The State's Diner! It's restaurant Sus Hijos is opening to give jobs to kids in halfway houses. It has been amazing to see God give them this restaurant and I was beyond excited to be the first group to test the food! After dinner, my amazing boyfriend set it up a fake birthday party for me which I loved. You see, this will be my first year in 6 years to not spend my actually birthday in El Salvador. On top of that, my boyfriend will be on a cruise on my actual birthday so I won't even get to see him. Soooo he gave me a fake birthday tonight with him there AND all of my Salvadorean friends :) And that made me cry happy tears.

It was an amazing day full of God things and God's love. I cannot believe my time here is coming to an end. I literally am not at all prepared to leave. In my mind I still have a few weeks left. But I thank God for the time He has given me here and I simply pray that He uses us as fully as possible tomorrow!

There has been nothing more fun than me getting to see Colton enjoy each orphanage! Here is him dancing with one of my favorite guys from this orphanage. He stole my dance partner, actually. 

Claire and I fell in love with Eduardo, the boy who Sus Hijos built a house for in March

Getting to be the first to eat at The State's Diner! 

This picture is actually from yesterday, but it's just a little happy because I was finally able to fulfill my dream of making a pupusa in an El Salvador home kitchen :) 

Ephesians 2:8-9

Monday was an extremely rough day all around for many different reasons. Dealing with very abrasive government people, missing children I wanted to see, so on and so forth. Therefore I chose not to post that day. None of it would have been very glorifying to God.

Tuesday we began building a house! It's in one of the villages I was able to help take food to last year, so it was a lot of fun getting to go back! When we build houses I always try to help a bit, but I somehow always get in the way or end up not really providing help because I'm pretty weak and we have a lot of strong guys on this team. Example: this year I tried to help and ended up drilling into my finger a bit. Obviously my calling is not to help construct anything! :)

Instead of building I was able to spend time with all of the kids in the community which was exactly what I needed. I absolutely adore spending time with the people of El Salvador because when you get into the poor communities you get to see how happy they are with what little they have. It makes me so incredibly happy to hear them giggle and sing and repeat that Jesus loves them. With the amazingly beautiful mountains and volcanoes, the breathtaking beaches, and most importantly the beyond gorgeous people, I have never been to a place that so perfectly exemplifies God's glory and majesty. And God allowing us to serve as His hands and feet for these people is just so amazing to me.

So long story short, Christ renewed my strength and my patience. As usual. And I am so very blessed to be sharing this experience with so many people that I love. I'm not sure why God has blessed me so much with this wonderful life!

Colton and I with one of my favorite girls, Yasmin

Getting the roof on the house! 

My diva Jennifer in her new dress, shoes, and with her new sunglasses

My all time favorite Salvadorena, Lilly, praying over a family while we passed out food. Lilly shows Christ's love better than anyone I have ever met and I am so glad God put her in my life to show me how to work! 

Trip of 2014

So we made it down for another year! Micaiah, Baxter, Colton and I teamed up with Starfish Orphan Ministry (based in Paducah, Kentucky) and it has been fantastic! We flew to El Salvador yesterday and arrived late last night after a fairly quick and very safe trip.

This morning we went to church, which is always one of my favorite experiences. It is just beyond amazing to me that even though we are singing in English, and the church is singing in Spanish, we are all worshiping God. We are all praising and bringing glory to the one, true God. How beautiful is that? Sometimes people get so frustrated with language barriers, but I don't. Because when it comes down to it, I think it's pretty stinking cool that God gets to be worshiped in so many different languages and in so many different ways!

After church we went off to one of the orphanages that I have been going to for about 4 years now. There are so many less children than there were my first year, and there have been many improvements. It is so amazing to see God using the missionaries down here! But as we walked around Colton made a comment about what it would be like to live in a place so dirty, and it made me realize that instead of looking at the current situation, I was just comparing the current situation to the past. So as amazed as I am that there are such improvements being made, I never want to forget that God has so many more improvements He wants us to make. Even though situations for these kids are BETTER, we should never stop trying to make things as good as they can possibly be.

Tonight we did one of the hardest things for me: feeding the homeless. It's raining tonight (of course, it's rainy season) so it's a bit chilly for a Salvadorean night in June. We all curled up in our rain coats, ponchos, and piled into the bed of the truck. We were all hit with cold, cold rain as we drove, and we were all pretty ready to get back to the house to get dry. The problem with this is that when you feed the homeless, and it's raining, and you get to go get warm and dry, you realize that the people you're feeding don't get to go get warm or dry. And while feeding the homeless you see children, mothers with babies, handicapped men, kids you used to work with in the orphanages, and people getting high off glue to distract themselves from being cold and hungry. All of those people are stuck out on the cold, wet streets while I am blessed enough to get to crawl into a bed, in an air conditioned room, and go to sleep.

I talked to one of my friends here about it for a while and I understand that people are typically homeless because of choices they make. But does that make it any less sad? Should I not get choked up seeing a young boy sleeping on the sidewalk in the rain just because he chose to run away? No. I should know God has a bigger plan for all of this. His plan is perfect and there is nothing I can do to hurry His plan along, or change it. I may not ever understand why those people are in the situations they are in, but that's not the point. I just pray God continues to use this week to strengthen my trust in Him and always let my heart break for others.