Red and Yellow...Black and White....

It is week 4 post-Peru and I am still wrestling over how to transfer these thoughts/feelings/emotions from my heart to this keyboard.  Clearly, I expected an outcome of this sort...but never this depth!  I had an inkling that if we were called to go and share Christ's love to 47 orphans in the middle of the Amazon jungle, then we had better be prepared for what He had planned to do in our hearts.  Boy, I should know better than to underestimate the I AM!  It's not that He just softened our hearts a little more or that He opened our eyes to things unseen.... For us, Heaven and Earth collided!  I felt HIS perfect...merciful...unconditional love pouring through my veins and out of my heart and for the first time, I truly grasped why God left his throne and dwelt among us.
"See what kind of love the father has lavished upon us, that we might be called CHILDREN of God; and so we are."  1 John 3:1
And so, 47 little Peruvian faces...faces abandoned by their families...faces unwanted by society...faces deemed worthless...broke my heart wide open.  These faces became 47 of HIS cherished children!  47 unique creations with stories, yes, even quite horrific ones, but also with hearts that feel and minds that dream just like ours.  47 faces that long to have someone hold them...long for someone to chase them...long for someone to say "They belong to me."  47 faces that yearn to have a family.  And while I still wrestle with the fact that Hunt and I couldn't be that to them, I rest in the fact that one day we will be...not on Earth but in Heaven.  For now, HIS love is sufficient...and HIS plan is sovereign.  So, to be used as a vessel, I am humbled and honored.  As a dear friend of mine said when sharing her pictures of Sudanese orphans, "Some of them we know their names, and some we do not.  The great news is that God does!"  They are God's children!  How BEAUTIFUL!
Take a look and see...

Red and Yellow, Black and White, they are precious in HIS sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world!

Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?  Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.  Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands...
Isiah 49:15-16

Pure religion is this:  to look after orphans and widows in their distress...
and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
James 1:27

A snap-shot at best, I know.  I plan to unwrap stories in posts to come but tonight I want to leave you with this question...
What if our lives counted for something greater than ourselves ?  What if we could be used in a mighty way to lift these orphans up, to love them, to care for them and to ultimately give them that which cannot be taken away?  Reel Life Adventures

You are BEAUTIFUL!