Lima, Peru

Lima, Peru

Video of my trip to Lima, Peru! Hope you enjoy!

"I Don't Know Why You Say Goodbye, I Say Hello"

Well, I had thought that I had said goodbye to Peru for a while, but I guess I will be here for about another week due to the snow in Atlanta, Georgia (the place we were to fly into). Plans change... I am a bit shaken up, but God is being so good to me and I am being changed even now, during the second, unplanned week. Who would have thought?
Last night we had a team meeting with the few that are still in Peru with me. I realized just how awesome and dedicated some of the people from my team really are to this trip.
There is a sweet couple whose son was taken to jail two days after we started the trip. If I were in their shoes, I would have wanted to leave Peru as soon as I found out, but they didn't. they stayed and worked inspite of the chaos back home.
Another woman that I have spent the few weeks with has every right to be upset about our current inability to go home. Her mom is in the hospital on her death bed. She could lose her mom at any second! She has every right to be angry and stressed about the fact that she is not able to get home, but she told me that she has peace. Peace in the middle of chaos. It is amazing how God can give us peace and joy even when we are facing the darkest nights and the lowest valley!

I am not going to lie... I feel like the same little girl who got lost in the parking lot when I was five. I am trying to be strong and easy going, but this is a challenge for me right now! I am missing yet another week of school (who would have thought I would be upset about that?)! I was prepared for pretty much everything to happen on this trip... except this. This was definitely a surprise! However, although I am scared, lost, and stressed out, God is still good. He is in control and He is here with me. 

God is using this trip to drain me. In other words, take everything out that is bad and show me what I need to fix. He has revealed to me things that need to be adressed when I get back home. He has also used this trip to fill me back up again. He has shown me joy that I have fallen away from in the smile of a old, beautiful woman and in the excitement of the little girls as they come running up to you. He has taught me so much! 

I realize that although I am scared, God is in Control. Or like my favorite song says, ¨He is the God of this City. He's the King of the people. He's the Lord of this Nation. He's the light in this darkness. He's the hope to the hopeless. He's the peace to the restless. For there is no one like our God¨(BlueTree), and there truly is no one like our God! I am so glad He is the God of my heart!

Hello!

Tonight we will go to the airport and we will get on th plane and leave. I keep geting posts on facebook that say "I miss you and I can´t wait to come back" which is sweet and I miss everyone too... but I don´t want to come back. I love it here, I love the people and the place. It´s so beautiful! These people need so much, it breaks my heart. In America I have so much compared to them, it´s crazy! I know that people in America need to, but not like this. It´s different. We had little girls come to our bus and ask for water... I mean who in America really has no way of getting water. The Bible says "Give water to those who are thirsty" (my paraphrase) and that is what it really is about.

I saw Jesus thirsty in those little girls eyes. I saw Jesus sleeping on the side of the street in a old man´s body. I saw Jesus desperate to be seen and be heard in these people and I can´t get the faces out of my head and I don´t want to, they are so precious! I can´t be the same person anymore, I just can´t! I saw Jesus in the smile of Wilma, the mother Theresa of this place.

This trip has stretched me so much! It has brought out some things that I need to change, and I am scared to change. It has opened my eyes to the hope that lies in the midst of disaster. God has used this trip to tear me apart and build me up again... I can´t fully express what I feel, but I will try. My heart is broken, fully broken. I know that choices lie ahead of me and some of the choices I am not going to want to make.

I want to live my life for others as I have this week. I want to connect with people and serve them. So, in a sense, though I may never come back to Peru, I my heart to stay in a posture of service to God and people as I have learned this week. So this is not goodbye, at least to this heart posture, but only hello.

70 x 7

It´s so hard to forgive sometimes, isn't it? Especially when the sin is against you or someone you love. At least I have trouble with that. It seems I have more compassion on the people I have never even met than the people that I know best, but I don´t believe it should be that way. We as Christians, God´s forgiven people, should be forgiving to all because we know how wonderful it feels to be forgiven.

I, as a Christian, don´t want to hold grudges against people. What right do we have to do that? We are sinners just like the rest, we are just sinners saved by the grace of God. We, sinners, holding grudges against other people would fit under the label of hypocrisy.

What if Jesus decided one day that He couldn't forgive us because our sins are to big or we have made the same mistake over and over? What would we do then? We would be lost, scared, confused, broken, but we know that Jesus would never do that and we are called to be like Jesus.

Jesus set the perfect example of true forgiveness. He was innocent, beaten, forced to carry a huge cross, nailed to the cross, then killed. And that is a vague list. He had every right to get mad at the people that were doing those things to Him. He could have easily called down angels to kill those people. He could have prayed to God to send those people to Hell... but He didn't... We read that He called out "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."


I do not know about you, but I, if I were in Jesus' situation, would have trouble praying for God to forgive them... but I hope that I could! I want to be like Jesus!
While struggling with this topic I stumbled across this verse in 1 Peter 4:8. It says, "Above all, love deeply, for love covers a multitude of sins." And it´s true. Haven´t you ever loved someone, probably a child, so much that when they do mess up you love them the same and barely recognize their flaw? That is the love Peter was talking about. A love that covers a multitude of sins, and that is the kind of love we as Christians should strive for! That is the kind of love that I want to have towards all people in Peru, America and anywhere else I may go!

Here I Go!

The day that I have been waiting for is finally here! Tomorrow I will be boarding the plane and leaving. In a way I will not be coming back. My body will, but I will be different. The person that I have been all my life will pass away in Lima, Peru and I will come home different... a good different. Of course I will come home with the some of the same qualities. I will still love music and I will still be obnoxious and I still  be really, really A.D.D., and I will still make stupid mistakes, but I am praying that the self-centeredness that captivates me will be wiped out, and the non-compassionate side of me will be replaced with compassion.

I am not going to lie and tell you I am not scared and that I am completely excited because that is not the truth. I am excited, but I am so nervous my stomach is getting upset and I am so scared! Change is uncomfortable.  I am stepping away from everything I once knew and into a whole new life style... It's scary! And although I believe that this is going to be a good change, I also know that it is going to be a heartbreaking change, it is not going to be comfortable to go through this, but that is the way God works most of the time... at least in my life.

I am so humbled by this oportunity, I want to fall on my face before God. Out of all the people in the world  that are way better than me, he sends me... a A.D.D., teenage girl with many more unlisted problems. I don't understand, but I don't think I am supposed to. I know I am not any more special to God than anyone else though and this adventure he is sending me on is not more special than any other adventure he sends others on. It's just different just like people are all different. In other words, God has a special plan for everyone's lives no matter who they are and what they have done. It's scary at times, so scary that you feel sick to the stomach, but it will be an amazing thing. You just have to be willing to step out of that comfort zone and maybe get a little dirty.

Love you guys! :)