I’ve been out of town and celebrating our country’s independance, so this is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and share the good news from last Wednesday.  God did it!  He blew us all away with how He provided for these orphans in India.  We asked for $4,884 in 48 hours to send 12 children to school in Mumbai, India.  Many of these kids were born to women working and living in brothels, and they’d come to an orphanage run by Asha Ministries.  The people on HopeChest’s first vision trip to India found out about them while they were there last week, and found out that school started last Thursday and the kids would have to wait another year if they couldn’t get the funds together in time.  So, on Tuesday morning, we all hit our blogs, Facebook, and Twitter, offering people the opportunity to experience the joy of making a difference in the life of a child.  $4,884 in 48 hours.  Well, God decided to show off and brought in $5,651 in only 28 hours!  12 school tuitions, uniforms, and school supplies, plus money for food!  It was quite a rush to get to watch God work, to see the money come in as we prayed and re-tweeted.  

My favorite story from the day is of one of my Adacar sponsor moms who called me asking if there was still time to give.  Her daughter had accidentally hit a button on the computer which caused my blog to pop up.  This sponsor mom read about what we were doing and thought, “Oh, I wish we could help, but we don’t have any extra right now.”  The mail arrived, and there was a surprise $500 check from a grandmother.  She immediately thought of the kids in India!  When I thanked this sponsor mom for choosing to spend her gift money on school fees for a child she’d never met, she answered, “How could I not?”  Wow!  I LOVE that!!  She had such joy and excitement in her voice, and that’s just it.  When we choose to give, not only does the recipient feel blessed, but so do we!  We are filled with joy and exuberance, and it’s such a fulfilling act of worship to God, who gives so generously to us.  Last Wednesday was such a special day.  I loved asking BIG and seeing my God respond even BIGGER.

Today my little Slash, like so many kids in the world, doesn’t have a father to celebrate.  I can’t stand it.  I’m hanging onto the truth that one day, he-slash-she will have the best dad in the world, my WakingAlex.  I’m comforted that my boy-slash-girl has the perfect love of an unfailing Father, God Almighty.  But I’m wrecked.  I’m wrecked for George, who clung to Alex and probably needs another hug right about now.  I’m wrecked for Bosco, 13 years old and needing a daddy to model godly manhood to him.  Alex is writing to our boys tonight.  Oh, how I love him so much.  If only letters could have hugging arms.

I remember all those years that I begged and begged God to be a mother, to watch Alex be a father.  I am so grateful for Elliott.  And I’m so grateful that God chose to answer my begs in a way that I never saw coming.  What a privilege to spend the day celebrating my incredible husband, my brother, also an awesome father, and my dad, the most amazing role model a girl could have and the most loving and compassionate and godly man on the planet.  I am so blessed to have these men in my life, and I’m so blessed to have them in the life of my son.  Tonight I’m filled with equal parts joy for the father in my life and anguish for the millions of kids without daddies to hold them.  I’m so in love with the Father to the fatherless. 

God, in this broken world filled with hurting kids, be enough for them tonight.  Show them how much You love them.  Fill their hearts with God-powered Daddy-love.

This morning at Southside Church we saw over one hundred kids get sponsored.  The Daraja Children’s Choir led worship, and I mean WORSHIP, not just performance.  We got to experience a slice of heaven, joining with these kids to glorify our Father.  It was beautiful.  It was powerful.  And then somehow Alex and I propelled our bodies onto the stage and the Holy Spirit took over and made the words come out of our mouths.  He gave us a glorious reprieve from nervousness and allowed us to have fun sharing how our sponsor kids have touched our lives.  We got to share with our church family about the other family that God has placed in our hearts, the kids of Adacar.  While speaking about the community to community model of Children’s HopeChest and the power of the local church, I felt so grateful for MY church, that they want to experience this together, to extend ourselves to Uganda and partner with Adacar.  The Daraja kids sang, “Church arise, come alive.”  Today, Southside did just that for the kids in Africa.  I love my church.  I am so proud of my church.  Daraja sang a song that reduced me to a puddle, “I am not forgotten; God knows my name.”  Yes!  That’s the power of sponsorship, of building a relationship with a child halfway around the world.  To let that child know, “God knows your name.  You are not forgotten.  I know your name, and God has placed you on my heart and in my family.”  It’s happened for us with Bosco and George.  Kathleen has Harriet.  Then there’s Meribu and Florence and Mary and Simon Peter and on and on and on, kids who are not forgotten.  God knows their names, every name, and He can use US, the local church, as His provision for them.  “Arise, let the church arise!”  And now that we’re awake, let’s never go back to sleep.

I’ve been avoiding my blog.  Well, actually, not avoiding it.  Every day since I got back from Uganda, I’ve logged on, stared at my blog, and logged off.  I think I had to cycle through a bunch of stuff before I was ready to write again.  I’m not sure that I’m ready to write even still.  For the first week after our return, I felt pissy and annoyed.  So weird, because I thought somehow that I’d return being uber-spiritual or something.  Yep, not so much.  I felt like my work in Uganda wasn’t finished and yet somehow I was back and supposed to just pick up my life here.  It felt like nothing here mattered.  I was, well, depressed.  Instead of digging into the Bible and drawing closer to God, I sat on the couch watching TV and eating M&Ms right out of the one-pound bag.  (Not that there’s anything wrong with that….)

Then last week, something shifted inside of me.  My sense of purpose returned.  I am here to advocate for these kids, to be their voice.  I don’t get to love them with my hugs right now, but I do get to love them by telling their stories, sharing their pictures.  I love them by letting God use me to find them sponsor families.  Right now, it’s enough.  It’s what it needs to be. 

So, I started out as woo-hoo girl, an extremely excited warrior ready to beat back the forces of darkness and beat down poverty with my enthusiasm.  Then I saw said poverty and lost my woo and hoo for awhile.  Warrior Girl had to freak out and numb out and figure out.  Now, my woo-hoo is bigger than ever, my convictions stronger than ever before.  Armed with stories that I’ve seen with my own eyes and smelled with my own nose and felt with my own fingers and toes, I am reentering the battle fully submitted to the only Warrior powerful enough to love these kids unconditionally, save these kids from destruction, and call each one tenderly by name.  My God, the Rock of my salvation.  Where I am weak and self-serving, He is strong and boundless in His love.  He does not take M&M breaks (Not that there’s anything wrong with that….).

Not hurting my joy-mood in the least:  Joseph just Facebooked me this about Bosco: “I found Bosco playing soccer and running around with other boys, I mean big boys!”  Um, how much does our God love?  Bosco, who wasn’t going to live.  Bosco, who wasn’t going to keep his leg.  Bosco, who’s prognosis was doubtful.  Bosco, an orphan in a picture-the-most-remote-place-you-can-and-go-further village in Africa with gangrene taking over half his leg a few short months ago is PLAYING SOCCER!!!  My God can do ANYTHING.

Nabukalu today.  I think today pulled out every emotion in my repertoire. 

Joy:  I fought back tears of joy as the kids greeted us with a song and beckoned us into the church.  The people here worship with their whole bodies, and I love it.  Songs dissolve into everyone praying separate prayers out loud, arms outstretched to the Lord, someone speaks, then more dancing and singing and drumming.  Though we worship in different languages, we praise the same living God and our worship together is powerful.  We introduced ourselves, and Martin shared a message about the joy of the Lord.  Sarah followed with songs, and the Holy Spirit so clearly spoke through Martin and sang through Sarah, because even though they didn’t discuss what they were going to do, the sermon and songs lined up perfectly as if they’d had a production meeting beforehand!

Sorrow:  As I spent time with the kids, I noticed many who were sick.  Yellow eyes and light hair from malnutrition, scars, sores.  The sponsored kids are identified because they are the most vulnerable ones in the community.  I feel a heaviness and trepidation, because Greg said tonight that the further north we go, the more malnutrition and famine we’ll see.  The men have moved south where there are jobs, so the farther north we go, the fewer men we see.  Guess what’s farther north?  Yep.  Adecar.  Oh dear Jesus, can it get worse?  Adecar has triple the orphans that we saw today.  Tonight my heart is filled with Nabukalu and our time there, but my love and concern for Adecar is brimming near the surface, ready to well up.  I’m not ready.  I never will be.  Please God, fill me with Your Spirit, because I am broken and at a loss for words or deeds without You.

Happiness:  Today we passed out beads and elastic string and the kids made necklaces.  In my head, I was picturing quiet craft time with the girls while the boys played soccer.  Wow, so not how it played out.  All the boys wanted in on the fun, so it was CRA-ZY!  It was so cute to the see the kids walking around with their bead necklaces, painted nails (yep, the boys, too!), and pillowcase dresses (just the girls J) that Megan made.  My overdeveloped sense of fairness wanted everything to be equal, but it was impossible to keep track of who had what.  We did our best, and I just have to let it go. 

Frustration:  I’m learning a lot about dealing with hordes of children desperate for affection and attention and any trinket that I have.  I made a lot of mistakes today and hope to do better tomorrow.  I just want to freely give things away, but when we’re dealing with this many kids, we have to have ORDER!  I vow to be more orderly tomorrow.  Straight lines, one at a time, like they do for lunch.

Contentment:  After the chaotic giveaway time, I wandered around and helped some of the girls with their necklaces.  I loved stringing beads and tying them around their necks.  They craved the attention and seemed to understand the word “beautiful.”  I told each one how beautiful she was.  It’s true.  Such beautiful children of God.  I sat down on a bench, drew one girl onto my lap, and put my arms around as many as possible.  I’m such a toucher.  At home, this freaks a lot of people out.  Here, these sweet children crave affection.  They want to hold hands, hug, and sit close next to me.  Visiting them isn’t just about what treats I hand out or what games we play.  I provide them with something so much greater, something they desperately need.  My physical presence.  Money and food meet their physical needs, but my actual person, wrapping my arms around them, rubbing their backs, holding their hands, drawing them close, meets a deep spiritual need.  It’s unquantifiable, but urgent.  Some people have challenged me that I can do more good by sending the money it takes for this trip rather than going myself.  After spending time with these kids, I can now say that they are wrong.  The kids don’t just need my money.  They need me.  And I need them.  I need them so badly.  Holding them makes my soul sing.  The sound of our bus rumbling to life when it’s time to leave has become my least favorite sound.  No one wants to leave.  The kids crowd in for one last touch, one last smile.  They reach their hands up to us like we reach our hands up to God, craving the touch from our Father.