Unfortunately, helping the young woman and her twins did not work out as we hoped. Without going into millions of details (I wouldn’t even know where to begin), she ultimately is not at a place in her life where she is ready to tackle long-term recovery from her drug addiction, and is no longer staying with us (of her own volition).
At the moment I feel bummed. I am sad for her and her children, and that she threw away an opportunity to remove herself from a negative environment and pursue healthiness and stability. I am sad to know what her children have endured and what they will likely continue to endure. I am sad that our investment in this young woman’s life did not yield change (or at least any change I can see). I am also dealing with some feelings of failure – like if I had done some things differently, the outcome might have been different. But ultimately, I know that God is in control and loves her and her kids (way!) more than I do, and that truth is something I have had to return to over and over. I will continue to pray for her and her kids – mainly that God would change her heart, transform her life from the inside out, and set her free.
Though I feel a great deal of sadness, I also feel relief. Honestly, the last few weeks have been extremely stressful and draining for us. The experience was a roller coaster of ups and downs and we truly put every ounce of time and energy we possessed into helping her, and it was exhausting. This experience only lasted 2.5 weeks, but I think we will need twice that just to recover 🙂 The situation was painfully stretching for me and I was forced to rely on the Lord in a unique way I had never experienced before. Once I have had a little more time to fully process everything, I will share more of my thoughts in an upcoming blog.
We really want to thank all you who prayed for us, encouraged us, and donated clothes, baby items, etc. We felt so loved and supported by you and are so grateful we didn’t go through this alone. It was such a blessing to have so many fellow Christians come alongside us in this whole process and demonstrate the love of Christ 🙂
Water is life, and because we have no water, life is miserable.
-a voice from Kenya
Right now, almost a billion people on the planet don’t have access to safe, clean drinking water. That’s one in eight of us.Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of all sickness and disease, and kill more people every year than all forms of violence, including war. Many people in the developing world, usually women and children, walk more than three hours every day to fetch water that is likely to make them sick. Those hours are crucial, preventing many from working or attending school. Additionally, collecting water puts them at greater risk of sexual harassment and assault. Children are especially vulnerable to the consequences of unsafe water. Of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and a lack of basic sanitation, 90% are children under 5 years old. Some other interesting statistics I found include:
-At any given time, half of the world’s hospital beds are occupied by patients suffering from a water-related disease.
-Children in poor environments often carry approximately 1,000 parasitic worms in their little bodies at any given time. Some of these worms can grow up to 3 ft. in length and once full grown will burrow out a person’s skin causing crippling pain and infections.
-An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the typical person living in a developing country slum uses in a whole day.
-Every 15 seconds, a child dies from a water-related disease.
These statistics are incredibly heartbreaking and the clean water crisis that the developing world continues to endure has been weighing heavily on my heart for awhile now. So you can imagine my excitement when the opportunity to actually go do something about it crossed my path! The opportunity came up through an organization called Assist International (run by my old pastor, Tim Reynolds). Assist International is a humanitarian organization that provides assistance and relief supplies to the poor and needy in developing nations. One of the many projects they take on is setting up systems to provide clean water. Since graduating in 2006 with a degree in mechanical engineering, it has been a dream of mine to use my skills to meet tangible needs in this world. When it turned out that the two years of experience I gained in the petrolium industry (before we joined staff with Campus Crusade) was directly applicable to this project, and Assist needed someone with engineering experience to help, AND I had the time and freedom to do so… I knew that God was at work and I jumped at the chance. A bonus on top of everything is that because this trip is sponsored byGeneral Electric, I will be receiving a large stipend for my work to put towards our financial goal for Campus Crusade!
So tonight my journey to Honduras begins. Tomorrow I will be in a city called Olanchito, working at a hospital that currently uses dirty water. Specifically we will be installing a water filtration system (in layman’s terms…it filters all the bad stuff out of the water) – check that bad boy out below! I’ll be in Honduras for 5 days and by next week, if all goes as planned, they will have access to filtered and purified water for their patients. I am so privileged and excited to be a part of this amazing work to bring the gospel to many in Olanchito in a tangible way. It’s so exciting to imagine all the lives that will literally be saved and changed just through this one system! “For…I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink…whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” -Jesus
Please pray for safe travels and safety within the country as well (Honduras is a country with much political unrest). Check back in a couple weeks for pictures and thoughts on the whole experience!
Maybe it’s a female thing, because I know this video doesn’t have the same effect on Sean as it does on me…but seriously, I tear up every time I watch it…and if you know me well, you know I don’t tear up often. It’s just that every time the video hits the 4:33 point, I just lose it. This skit is such a beautiful picture of what Jesus did for us on the cross and the hardships he endured just so that we could be reconciled with God. Well and maybe it’s more than a female thing…maybe it’s because I see myself and my own story in the girl’s character. I haven’t experienced everything she did in the skit, but the hopelessness (when she has the gun to her head) and the pain and obstacles she endures as she desperately reaches out for Christ and the freedom/relief she experiences when Christ steps in on her behalf really speaks to my heart in the deepest of ways.
Although I was raised in a family that attended church on Sundays, I always thought that Christianity was about a bunch of rules that could be summed up as a moral code we are supposed to abide by. As you can imagine, this kind of stale and lifeless religion had no appeal to me as I entered my teens. Along with my misunderstanding of what Christianity was, my family situation was difficult growing up which only served to further alienate me from God, who I felt didn’t care about me. Although I always felt like there probably was a God, I went about the first 18 years of my life essentially ignoring Him as I always felt there were much bigger priorities in my life.
When I graduated from high school in 2003 and began my first year of college at UCSB, I felt like I had it all together. I was getting excellent grades, I was dancing on a hip hop team, I had freedom to do whatever I wanted for the first time in my life, and I was in love. I was living the typical college student life, complete with drinking and partying and all the rest. As the school year went on, however, I found myself unhappy and depressed. I had everything I thought I wanted but somehow I still felt empty inside. I began to isolate myself more and more from friends and only found happiness in spending time with my boyfriend.
Returning to UCSB for my sophomore year of college, I knew something had to change. I began attending Campus Crusade for Christ meetings, and I started to hear bits and pieces of the Gospel for the first time. I was intrigued that I could (and was made to have) a personal relationship with the living God and I was floored that there was salvation through faith (instead of good works). I was told that it wasn’t about rules…it was about believing that Jesus is the Savior of the world and subsequently letting that truth transform my life.
What I was hearing made sense to me, but I needed to research it on my own as well…I didn’t want to be swept into an emotional high without studying the facts and verifying that what I was believing was real. After researching, I found that Jesus was a real man who walked the earth over 2,000 years ago. He claimed to be God and he predicted that he would die and rise again 3 days later and this prediction was fulfilled. Because Jesus’ prediction was fulfilled (and I found compelling evidence for that), it made sense to me that I should really take the things he said seriously. The most important thing being that God loves me, but I am separated from him because of my imperfections. Jesus’ death and resurrection provides the only means of reconciliation to God through belief in Him which consequently enables me to follow in His footsteps.
To be honest, choosing to follow God has not been the easiest path by any means…but it is the right path and it is the path that leads to life. When I chose to surrender my life to God, it meant giving up my own will to follow His. Letting go of my boyfriend at the time is the hardest thing I’ve ever done and I still experience pain surrounding the whole situation to this day. I really did love him but I knew that the relationship was not healthy. Deciding to walk away from him and walk towards Christ was a most painful and gut-wrenching experience, but I now look back on it with an inexplicable fondness because I can see how much that experience shaped my faith. Looking back, I think the reason it was so difficult for me to let go of him was because I had made him my god – I had put my hope, trust, and faith in him rather than the true God who is the only one who will never disappoint.
I have known the Lord now for 5 ½ years and it’s so trippy for me to imagine how different my life would be if I hadn’t had the experience I had in college. I would be a completely different person…and honestly, I think I would be miserable. Life is not perfect and I experience many ups and downs in my journey with the Lord but I am truly a new person and my new life is more fulfilling, more adventurous, more edgy, more peaceful, more dangerous, more genuine, more exciting, and more loving that I ever imagined life could be. 2nd Corinthians 5:17 says “therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” Jesus redeemed and saved my life both on this earth and for eternity and He means everything to me. I strive to live my life every day as a testimony to Jesus’ love and in His power I plan to leave this world a different place because of my existence.
