We moved on from our first location! We finished up at Casa Hogar Alegre last week and now we’re in San Cristobal for a week staying at a YWAM base. Then a week of debrief at Lake Atilan and then Guatemala!

Leaving the orphanage hit me so hard. The kids there are the sweetest. They all came from families of hurt and abuse and live in groups with teachers and nannies instead of parents. And we got to go in and love them and play with them and ask them questions about themselves and give so many hugs and I know many of us had the heart posture of just loving them unconditionally and treating them as kids of the King. I know that my main focus was just giving them the love that they may be lacking. So the whole time that was my intention. So after becoming invested in these kids and spending over a month caring so much about them, leaving was brutal. On both sides. I’ve never had kids collapse sobbing into my arms. So many times I was brought to the floor because these kids were crying and hugging me and just sunk to the ground. One of the people we worked with there texted us many hours after we left and said that everyone there was still crying and we “definitely made an impact”. Wow that day was heavy. Just replaying saying goodbye and how broken some of the kids were it tore my heart in half. Talking to people afterwards though a good point was brought up. We loved those kids so much, but God loves them even more. And there’s so much worry about their resources and the teams going in after us but God has a hand over that orphanage. Gods provided for them so far and He will continue. We got to do a work for a little while but He’s always there. I’m beyond grateful for what that time taught me. I learned so much about love and so much about God’s character and goodness. I know I’ve said the word love like a million times here but genuinely those kids taught me so much about it. I cared about each of them so much despite their pasts, their actions, the language barrier, everything. Well then imagine how God loves us if He can love us UNCONDITIONALLY and STEADFASTLY. He sees us as His little children just like how we looked at these sweet kids. That night when we got to San Cristobal we were doing worship and I was sitting there and a friend came up and we were talking about how tough it was to leave after kids are bawling in your arms. And she said how cool is that though. They feel safe enough to just collapse and cry and hug so tightly. How many of us wish we could do that with Jesus. I hope that means they saw some Jesus in us and that’s such a beautiful thing. 

Now in San Cristobal we have a week of kind of random ministry. Yesterday we went to the main square and sang some worship and walked around with signs for encouragement, prayer, and free hugs. That’s not something I’m used to and it felt strange for sure. But it was still so cool. Singing worship on these steps in the middle of the town is like woah this is embarrassing right? But it was so fun. There were a couple intrigued people and some conversations that happened. Nothing life changing but it was still good practice for going out of my comfort zone. If I get over the thought of potential embarrassment, I can focus on the fact of hey I’m in Mexico, I’m on a missions trip, and I’m with some of my best friends in the world. Like this could result in some super cool God moments and conversations. And if not, we can have fun doing it. Joy of Jesus right. It was a good push of boldness. 

Lastly, just something I’ve been learning. I’ve been thinking a lot of what abiding in Christ means. Just being WITH God. For a good amount of time here I felt like my thoughts and worries were just weighing me down. I couldn’t even pinpoint what it was exactly. Just every thought, every worry abut the future, every tiny thing just all felt like small weights in my head that were holding me down. And it was so annoying. I didn’t know how to communicate that to anyone who asked or how to fix it. Then I started reading 1 John and it says the word abide so many times. Example: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.” 1 John 4:15. And I see the word abide all over on mugs and as tattoos but like genuinely thinking about it is so cool. So the more I read 1 John, the more I saw that word, and the more I thought about the meaning of that word, a lot of heaviness went away. I had to keep telling myself “just abide in God. Be with God. Stand with Him. Because I can’t cure myself, I can’t fix anything. So what else can I do but abide in Him.” And its so much lighter to live with that mindset. Push out the thoughts and change it to hey, I’m just gonna sit with God and He’ll take care of it. It’s so freeing.

Now. Some prayer. Casa Hogar Alegre is a beautiful place containing the most amazing kids and staff ever. God’s hand is surely over them but pray that that continues always. That teams that go into that place treat these kids with so much love always. If you want to help them out as well, reach out to me and I’ll give you details. Pray over my team as well. The last couple days our house has been full of sickness. Like an abundance of puking and many other things. People are slowly getting better but pray for health so that the rest of this trip everyone can live out each day in what the Lord has planned for them. And lastly boldness. I know God can use boldness so much for the advancement of His kingdom so pray that there’s an insane amount of boldness in each of us. 

I’m soo close to being fully funded! Praise God. If you feel led to help me finish that out, I would be so so so so grateful! 

God is doing so much. He’s so cool.