He Sees Each Tear That Falls

He puts them in His bottle (Psalm 56:8). What a tender God we serve!

There are two little children that captured my heart and God won't let me forget my short time with them. I think of them often. I pray for them when they come to my mind...just like Joel and Yasin and Alexis and Keoshira and Carolina and the many more. They are faces in my mind and places in my heart that have been forever changed because of the touch they've had on my life.

This story I don't even want to write....I don't want to think about it, but these two children are in my heart and I think about them every day since I've been home.

The father that should be protecting this sweet six year old little girl has instead chosen to do things that I can't even mention. She is a timid girl...she hardly even spoke...I rarely saw her smile. She cried, really she sobbed for her mother one day when we were leaving. Honestly what little girl wouldn't want her mommy...the only mommy she's ever known. I just kept thinking that as those tears fell...the Lord knows and the Lord sees and He's catching these tears. My heart was being ripped in two because I knew her story. I knew why she was timid...I knew why she said very little and I knew why she didn't smile and giggle like some of the other girls. She missed the fun beach day because she had to go to a forensic medical appointment. Frustrating...no six year old girl should have to endure that. I wanted to bring her home and let her have a daddy that adores her and loves her and protects her. A daddy who would teach her about a loving, heavenly Father that has immeasurable love for her. And yet, I had to walk away and it was hard, very hard.

And after further investigation, they decided that the home wasn't a safe place for her brother either. And this one captured my heart with his long eyelashes, his playful spirit, his incredible smile and the large scar on his cheek that probably has a story of it's own. The evil in this world sometimes seems almost too much to bear, especially evil against children. But then I remember that the victory is already won. Good beats evil and the enemy has been defeated. The day of vengeance will come. There is a Judge of this earth and people will give account.
And the God that I serve can do exceeding abundantly in the lives of two precious children whose lives have been overturned. There isn't a mountain that our God can't move and I trust and believe that He has great things for Adela and Marvin.

He Knows Their Name

Every time I go on a mission trip, something different pulls at my heart. Sometimes different things hit me on different days.

Day 1 at Coco's and we were all introducing ourselves in Spanish which is funny in itself if you've ever heard me try to speak Spanish. :-) One of the tias said that this baby was 7 months old and she didn't have a name. Obviously, that did not go over well. We also thought that there was no way possible that this baby was 7 months old because my babies were bigger than this little one when they were newborns. Brian asked a few more questions and they held to their 7 month old status.

It bothered me all day and all night that this sweet little one didn't have a name. I guess they are waiting on the mom who is addicted to drugs to either name the baby or the government would name the baby. I wanted to tell the tias (nannies) to just name the baby. She needs to be loved on and she is an individual created by an Almighty God. But unfortunately, the relationship is not there for me to say anything and so I just prayed for God to be near to this sweet one.

After some further questions, we found out that the baby was born at 7 months and was now one month old. Gwen decided from the very beginning that this sweet baby was her assignment. I don't even think I held her for more than 5 minutes because she was almost always in Gwen's arms, which is incredibly sweet! Amazing how the Lord moves different people to different assignments.

And every day when I saw this little one, all I could think of is the song that says "He knows my name....He knows my every thought....He sees each tear that falls and hears me when I call..." And that's about the only thing that brought me comfort regarding this situation. I know that the Lord is all knowing and all seeing and I trust that He'll intervene on this sweet precious little girl's behalf. All the days ordained for her were written in His book before there was yet one of them.

What $80 Can Do

It can bring some big smiles to some kids in Costa Rica who desperately needed some swings for their swing set.


And these faces are why we go....they are loved and cherished by our heavenly Father. God has great plans and a purpose for their lives. They are wonderfully and uniquely made and are worthy to be loved and how they desperately need to be loved. These faces bring sweet memories to my mind!

Amazing What A Little Paint Can Do

All is well in Costa Rica. I have a gecko living in my room...at least he joined me his morning and is making all kinds of noise. I prefer him over the very large roach that our team saw last night.

It was a little cooler yesterday and we were able to seal the cement walls and then get them painted at the orphanage. The team that comes in on this Saturday will paint a mural on one of the walls. The difference a little paint can make is unbelievable. The kids pitched in and helped and the team endured the heat, worked hard and even painted in the rain. We also fixed the seesaw, a gaping hole in the swing set, and one of the swings. The next team will bring hinges to attach a second swing. As soon as those things got fixed, the kids immediately started playing on the swing set again. That made us all happy.

THE BEFORE: We scrubbed these walls with wire scrub brushes trying to get the mold, mildew and other various fungus off the walls.




MIDWAY: The white sealer even made a difference. These are kids that helped us paint.




THE END RESULT:

And this is the little boy that captured my heart...it happens every time. He just came to the house today, a sad story that I can't even type out at this point.

Making an Invisible God Visible

It's a quote from Kay Warren's book, Dangerous Surrender (a great read).


It's Sumer's heart cry for the orphans in Ethiopia. It's my heart cry for people all around the world, even for my very own children.


We were at the beach and Stephen found a sand dollar on Shell Island. It was perfectly intact, not broken at all. It was something to be treasured. I remembered my dad finding those for me when I was a kid. They really are beautiful.


We brought the shells and the sand dollar back to the room and a certain sibling broke the sand dollar. They are delicate. Stephen was devastated to say the least and those of you that know Stephen well know that he doesn't just snap out of it quickly. As we were driving to dinner and the subject of the broken sand dollar came up yet again, I told everyone that we would just pray that we would find a sand dollar the next day. To which a frustrated Stephen said, "I've prayed about a lot of things and God doesn't answer." (Don't you just feel that way sometimes?) I prayed that we would indeed find a sand dollar the next day. As we were taking the boat to Shell Island, I was pleading with the Lord that He would answer Stephen's prayer. My cynical side thought, "it's just a sand dollar, what's the big deal? Does God really care about sand dollars?" You know what, I think He does. I think He wants to make Himself visible. I think He does it all the time and we just ignore it or pass it up as coincidence.


Within 5-10 minutes, Stephen had found a sand dollar. I was praising the Lord! He set it down by our bag, but then the bag got moved by a different sibling than the previous sand dollar fiasco. Do you know how hard it is to remember where exactly that bag was on the beach so that you can locate the sand dollar? It's hard, let me just say. We never did find that stack of shells. I started praying fervently that we would find another sand dollar and we did...we found several more and a shark tooth. You know why, because He did exceeding abudantly above all that we could ask or think. He does it all the time.


He makes Himself visible to us. Don't miss Him! And when you see Him, give Him the glory. He is worthy!


This is my centerpiece on my kitchen table. An African bowl with five sanddollars. It reminds me to pray for Africa...that they would see God for who He really is and the sand dollars remind me to praise Him that He alone is God and He hears our prayers even when we pray for a sand dollar!

Most of you know that I'm working two part time jobs and whew, it's crazy. That's a blog post for another day.

We had wanted to go to the beach, but decided to scrap it once the oil spill happened and then it seemed like it was taking forever for the oil to hit the beach, so I kept thinking maybe we can squeeze in a quick trip to the beach. My hubby is awesome and reworked his schedule so that we could get away for a few days.

We were going to go to his hometown, Pensacola Beach, but then they did find some tar balls on the beach and I just wasn't that excited about getting in the water if there was a possiblity of oil in it. And so we canceled our reservations and went to Panama City Beach.

It was beautiful and wonderful and relaxing. The sound of the ocean and the beauty of the water brings renewal and refreshment to my weary self. Eating outside breathing that fresh beach air...I love it! The white sand, oh how I love the white sand at the Gulf beaches. The water was 82 degrees warm...wonderful! The waves were fairly calm and there were very few jellyfish. I got sunburnt, we all had sand in our bathing suits when we returned to the hotel, but it's a wonderful place to be. Africa and the beach...probably my two favorite spots in the world.

I usually come home from Africa and say to Derek, "Let's just sell everything and move to Africa." On the last day of our short beach trip, I said, "Let's just sell everything and move to the beach." But the Lord is not calling us to move to either place, so we'll just be content in our sweet state of Tennessee.

Oh Happy Day!

Elizabeth and my dad were both baptized on Sunday! My dad decided a couple of years ago that he wanted to rededicate his life and he waited to get baptized with his only granddaughter. It was a very special day. I almost put a baptismal robe on and joined in on the fun! :-)

The pictures tell the story better than I could ever put into words. Thank you to PT for making it a special day for dad and Elizabeth!

Elizabeth's best friend MC stood by the baptismal with me and watched Elizabeth get baptized.


Telling everyone he loves Jesus!


And he's down...

And he almost went down a second time....Tom had to use lots of arm muscle to pull dad out of the water! :-)


Elizabeth was next. She wasn't nervous until she either saw all the people in the worship center or thought PT wasn't going to get Papa out of the water...not sure which one. I think PT could tell that she was getting nervous and didn't linger...down she went and back up again with her feet coming out of the water (she was completely immersed at one point for you sticklers!)

And what a day that will be when my Jesus we will see!! We serve an awesome God!