Learning to live for HIS glory

As the little one cries himself to sleep . . . I'll sit here and pray. Pray for these moments, That he'll know he's loved; Know Love. Pray for the future, For Life. And as I pray, I'm reminded of the others. Little ones near and far With pieces of my heart. Some, like A. Not so little anymore. 18? Lord, protect him from the gangs, The drug dealers. Continue to place in his life way-signs pointing to Jesus. F, her life has changed, Haiti's no longer home. Bless that family, Use their love. Then there's D, & B, S, P . . . & a handful of A's & H's. In all of these young hearts, Jesus, Stir a love for You, A yearning for Your kingdom come. Draw whole families to You, Use their lives. Amen. " 'Shout for joy, O barren one, you who have borne no child; break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not travailed; for the sons of the desolate one will be more numerous than the sons of the marr...

I'm exhausted.  I've been up for about 15 hours and traveling for over 12 of them.  And I still have a few to go. I feel too tired to write, but at the same time I know sometimes my thoughts come out the purest when I think I'm too tired. I miss my babies.  My arms are begging to pick one up and hold him close.  I even miss Jacob's crying when I laid him down.  I miss Fritzline and her silly faces, her patience in giving me Creole lessons.  I miss Shela who was always ready to hug me and tell me that she loved me.  I miss Venite, who facebooked me in the airport tonight!  But I miss hearing her voice and seeing the genuineness in her smile.   I miss hugging and kissing them. I miss the bond of love in Christ even though we barely knew each other.  I even miss speaking a language I hardly know!  In fact I find myself wanting to speak it to the people in the airport.  Do you think they'd look at me strange?  An Am...

So, a normal day for me this week has looked like this:   I get up around 7 o'clock and eat breakfast in my room--a granola bar:)  Then I brush my teeth with my water bottle, still getting used to that.  After that I go to either the baby or toddler room and hold and play with them. I go back and forth between them most of the day.  Today I spent about 4 hours organizing the bookshelves in the schoolroom.  But most days I just play with the babies and the toddlers.  Around noon time I eat some Creole food for lunch and then go back to holding babies.  I have something for dinner around five and skype my family.  Around 6 I take a cold shower--so wonderful!!  Then I come back to my room and get Creole lessons!  I'm learning alot.  When I come back I may speak only Creole!  haha, just kidding.  That usually goes for about two hours.  I teach them English at the same time.  Then we turn out the lights and go to sle...

I'm going to keep this short, but wanted to let you all know how life in Haiti is going.  I love it!  The countryside is beautiful, the people so joyful.  I walk into the toddler room and have five toddlers reaching their arms up for me to hold them and saying, "mama, mama!"  It's wonderful, exhausting, and made me a little sick this evening--lots of kids and germs, but I'm feeling better now.  And the hugs are so worth it! It's hard too, the OLTCH compound has probably about 75 people on it and less than 10 of them speak English really well.  Communication can be tricky.  But I am learning some Creole, and they are learning some English. :)  I'm also being challenged to look to Jesus as all I need.  The only one I NEED to communicate with.      That said, male bay bay!  (I'm going, goodbye).

  In a week I will be headed for Haiti!   I am so excited to see what God will do.  He already has been providing so much!  It has been awesome to see His provision as I prepare to go.  He truly is a faithful God, the only one that I can trust completely in everything.  Yet so often I  struggle to trust Him.  I know He is faithful and trustworthy: He has proven Himself those things over and over again in my life.  However that knowledge does not always connect with how I live my life.  I am so blessed that God continually reminds me of how faithful He is.  He is such a patient God.   I am looking forward to growing in my walk with Jesus during this trip.  However I don't want to wait until then to grow.  God has been challenging me with things right here in my every day life.  Mostly about whether I really trust Him with the pen of my life story, and if I really am willing to follow His commands and walk in obed...

It all started back in January.  I was sitting in a church service but not paying a whole lot of attention.  Yes, for the sake of this story, I'll admit that!  My mind had drifted . . . I was thinking about orphans and Haiti--kind of random.  I don't really remember what I was thinking about those two subjects, and at that point in time I was kind of confused as to why I was thinking about them.  Then all of a sudden my attention was drawn back to what Pastor Lane was saying.  In my distracted state I had heard him say three words, and those three words rocked my world.  He was talking about how God views those who are lost, those that we look down on--that He looks at them and says "That's my Hudson."  Earlier in the week I had been researching a school of sorts in Colorado.  I'd been thinking about possibly going to Eric and Leslie Ludy's Leadership Training School for the summer.  In light of that I had been listening to a lot ...