It was hard, yet heart warming. It was challenging, yet beautiful. It was draining, and yet very fulfilling.
But through it all I saw God more tangibly than I have ever seen Him.
Some days I read things that really hit the point of feelings accumulated over there, and other times there are no feelings... just numbness.
There is so much need and so much darkness that you feel incapable of really being able to do anything. Yet Gods word tells us to be a light in the darkness, to let our light shine. It's what He has called each one of us to do. And while sometimes that feels so minute in the midst of the severity of it all, it can also be the biggest impact in even one persons life.
While we were in Guatemala, there was an accident. There were two people who were killed in the accident. One was a girl named Ani, she was the sister of the boy who I met and sponsored 4 years ago (David Dani). I can't explain to you how much compassion I felt for him in this moment. I didn't know what words to say that could make him feel some sort of comfort, I just sat there on the floor and cried with him.
I read this morning in a blog that sometimes "The gift of your presence IS the present."
Your presence in times of trouble, is the gift to the person grieving.
Dani's brother, Elias, also has a sponsor (Named Kellie) who is a friend of mine, she was on the trip with me and was there to grieve with Elias too.
Gods timing is perfect.
When I met David Dani 4 years ago - 2011
Him and I this trip - 2015
Elias & Kellie Nov 2014
Their sister, Ani
To think that God planned to place Kellie and I there at Casa the week that these two boys needed people who loved them in their time of trouble, just showed me how God is ALWAYS in the details.
So much so, that even when Mike (the man who started Casa) preached a sermon on Sunday called "Are you really saved?" didn't know what was coming a few days later.
He stressed that it's not about religion, or rules, or works…but if you died tomorrow, do you know who Jesus is?
He gave people the opportunity to come forward if they wanted to know Jesus. Ani went that day and stated that she wanted to know Jesus. God knew that a few days later she would be with Him.
God is in the details even when we don't know it in the moment.
I also read in the same blog this morning:
"We serve a God who fulfills His promises, and it is His delight to reveal Himself amidst a swirl of troubles. He calls us to be still and wait patiently, and in His goodness, even gifts us with the faith to do so (Ephesians 2:8). Even before the floodwaters swell over our head, He has already prepared a safe passage."
I hadn't been back to Casa in 4 years, but have always kept in contact with Dani.
I didn't quite know why I was going on this trip and had said no the first time I was asked to come along.
Yet God later put it on my heart to go, even without details of why… then the accident happened and it made me aware that God had already gone before and knew what was coming. He knew that these two boys would need shoulders to cry on. And Kellie and I got the honor of being those two shoulders.
I pray that all Dani and Elias could see in their time of darkness, was God's light shining through two people with no words, but the gift of compassion that God so generously placed in us for that moment.
