The craziness of Christmas and New Years passed, and we felt exhausted! We hadn't had our weekly day off for a few weeks, plus the kids are on vacation so they're ALL AT HOME ALL THE TIME! Long story short, we needed to get away!
It almost didn't happen. We were hoping to leave Tuesday morning, but Monday night we still hadn't heard anything from one of the moms, and we were keeping all three of her children. She had dropped them off on Friday, to keep them out of their home environment for the New Year's festivities (i.e., drunken parties). But when we never heard anything from her, and she didn't show up to get them, and we couldn't get in touch with her, we began to worry. And we also began to doubt the possibilities of our family vacation. But our neighbors here on the farm insisted on receiving the three kids, and we left Tuesday morning as planned! (We still haven't heard from her, and the kids are still with us... if we HADN'T gotten out of town, I can't imagine how we'd be right now. God knows what we need, and is gracious!)
We all piled in Tony and Laura's 33-year-old Nissan and hit the road for Chinauta! Our reservation turned out to not be what we'd expected, so we walked around looking for another place to rent, and got immeasurably more than we'd asked or imagined! A house, all to ourselves, in a gated community (Bibi says that type of rental house used to belong to narcotrafficers! That puts an exciting new spin on our vacation home!), with a private swimming pool and with tons of fruit trees and an outdoor kitchen/grill/eating area! And the price was almost exactly the same as the place we had booked! It was perfect... Did I mention the hammock?
One afternoon, lying in the hammock, I sipped an iced coffee and watched the kids in the pool as the sun filtered down through palm leaves. Seeing the joy on their faces and hearing the peals of laughter accompanied by the splashing, I was struck with gratefulness.
God snatched these children out of their situations and is blessing them. Children of solitude, who were left alone for too long too young, who were born of their mothers' loneliness; children of the streets and of lives of scavenging; children of prostitution; children of pain and sorrow; children of acoholism and drug abuse; children of verbal, physical, sexual abuse; children of attempted abortions; the children of no way out.
These children are only here by the grace and goodness of God, their Daddy.
And we, the staff, are only here by the invitation and provision of that same good, gracious, loving Father.
Hot country, vacation, the pool, the perfect house with the hammock, family, relationship with God, a future... that is what he's allowing me to be part of for his children in Colombia.
No comments:
Post a Comment