Sunday, August 2nd Journal

Our devo time this morning was great – excellent weather for one thing.  But I was also encouraged to hear from my three boys what they are expecting God to do in their lives this week.  It’s gonna be awesome!

I titled the message that I shared with the group on Sunday morning was “How to Break Your Hearts”.  We discussed why we’re here in Creel and how to grab hold of God’s heart for the people of Creel.  We also had several times of group sharing and prayer and sang a few a capella songs of worship.  It was a very powerful launch point for our week of ministry.

The rest of the morning and some of the late afternoon consisted of gathering and organizing the donated goods we had collected to distribute among the Tajumaran people.  It was a big task, but almost everybody pitched and gave it their all.  It was definitely a site to behold.

The meals and accommodations here have far exceeded our expectations.  In fact, whereas I thought I might be losing some weight on this trip, I might actually be gaining some.  Our meals at the hotel have been three-course meals at every sitting: soup, main dish, and dessert.  And what we were told was going to be our “Mexico-nice” hotel with tinkling shower heads has turned out to be a rather pleasant stay.  The showers are fine; the water just takes a while to warm up… that’s all.

Today was our first day to make the trek up to the orphanage.  None of us knew what to expect, but I think – again – all of our expectations were exceeded.  It all started kind of slow and awkward… no one knew what to say or do.  But then we started introducing ourselves, hugging, saying “O-la” and it was like the heavens opened up.

We brought sports balls, frisbees, crayons, fingernail polish, and more to share with the kids.  When our students started playing around with the kids, amazing smiles broke out everywhere.  BIG, huge, grinning smiles!  It was amazing.  You could literally “feel the LOVE” in the courtyard.

I was going around trying to capture the experience on film and was having the hardest time wiping the grin off my face (which I thought must have been overwhelmingly BIG).  I was so overwhelmed with joy seeing what I was seeing.  Our students playing, loving on, and sharing their joy with orphans who have nothing but their orphanage family.  My smile was so big I felt tears running down my cheeks.  It was totally the experience of the trip so far for me.  I could play and watch our kids play with those orphan kids all day long.

And, oh, how beautiful they are!  Their smiles, their laughter, their language, the colors of their clothes – it ALL struck me as so beautiful!  What an incredibly overwhelming experience.  Here’s a few pics from our first visit…

Before dinner, I was finally instructed in how to call back home on the nearby pay phones.  I found out that Deanna’s fall from the ladder on Saturday was causing her so much pain that she was nauseous and had to leave after the first service at Destiny this morning.  OUCH!  From what I understand from our short conversation (that my 10-minute calling card allowed), she went to Sioux San and was diagnosed with an inflammation of her ribs (I won’t attempt to spell the medical term for that without the aid of Google).

Kella also got on the phone for a couple minutes and told me that she “loves me more” and “misses me more” than I love and miss her.  I argued with her but she always seems to win that one.

At the end of the day, we shared stories from the day, and the worth of this trip and the reason that we’re here starting becoming clearer to me.  Students from our group were sharing about how God was opening their eyes in exciting new ways.  Several of them had tears in their eyes and shared with such emotion that it was ripping me apart inside, too.  God is SO GOOD!

We went to bed a little earlier this evening because our schedule in the morning will be adjusted for our work days (the next three days).  I’m looking forward to seeing what God has in store for us.  But I did manage to sneak away with a group from our team and go to the ice cream place.  BONUS!

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