Returned...

We are back home.

 

Our trip was beyond incredible.

 

I feel like my heart was changed and challenged more deeply than ever before.

 

So much is stirring in my heart and mind,

 

that I just cannot put words to it yet.

 

I feel so humbled,

 

so selfish,

 

so gluttinous,

 

so deeply honored that we got to be even a tiny part of what God is doing in Baja...

 

...and honestly, I think most of my heart is still back there on those dusty roads, in the arms of those children who hold on so dearly....

 

It was so easy to see Jesus there.

 

My plan was to load pictures today but for some reason it is not working.

 

Instead I want to share a poem sent in the orphanage newsletter.

 

I cannot seem to move it from our counter and read it over and over again praying that my heart will continue to be broken for the things that break the Lord's.

 

 

 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Matthew 25:40

 

 

We pray for children who put chocolate fingers everywhere,

 

who like to be tickled,

 

who stomp in puddles and ruin their new pants,

 

who sneak popsicles before supper,

 

who can never find their shoes.

 

*

And we pray for those who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,

 

who are born in places we wouldn't be caught dead,

 

who never go to the circus,

 

who live in an x-rated world.

 

*

We pray for children who bring us sticky kisses and fistsfuls of dandelions,

 

who sleep with the dog and bury goldfish,

 

who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money,

 

who cover themselves with bandaids and sing off key,

 

who squeeze toothpaste all over the sink,

 

who slurp their soup.

 

*

 

And we pray for those who never get dessert,

 

who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,

 

who can't find any bread to steal,

 

who don't have any rooms to clean up,

 

whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser,

 

whose monsters are real.

 

*

 

We pray for children who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,

 

who shove dirty clothes under the bed,

 

who get visits from the tooh fairy,

 

who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool,

 

who squirm in church and scream in the phone,

 

whose tears we sometimes laugh at,

 

and whose smiles can make us cry.

 

*

 

And we pray for those whose nightmares come in the daytime,

 

who will eat anything,

 

who have never seen a dentist,

 

who aren't spoiled by anybody,

 

who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,

 

who live and move, but have no being,

 

who want to be carried and for those who must,

 

for those we never give up on and for those who don't get a second chance,

 

for those we smother...

 

and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

 

- Ina J. Hughes

 

 

My heart is in both places...and I pray that it always will be.