So going to Baja was a really good trip. The Lord definately broke me while we were there for these kids and their stories. We worked with so many kids and loved them so freely that leaving was really hard.
We helped the church with construction and I really enjoyed talking to the man who we worked with. He spent his day telling good stories of the church we were working for and not focusing on the bad. Because I feel like a lot of times people only focus on the weak areas of the church and fail to see the good. He also complimented people when he realized they were doing a good job. He was truly a man seeking the Lord. Some people painted houses in the community and bunk beds that the kids sleep on. Others pulled weeds and had a good time fellowshipping with their team. And on days when there weren't many jobs, we did little chores for them like organizing their shop and getting an area ready to be a garden.
Our afternoons were filled with getting to know the kids at the orphanage and playing with them on the playground or in my case, the nursery. This was always a good time for everyon and it was also really fun to watch the people on my team interacting with the kids and laughing and having a good time. When you're on the playground no one, including the kids, seemed to care about the langauge barrior. A lot of people on the team became really connected with one kid and it was so much fun to see their faces light up when we walked down the mountain in the afternoon. They always just seem to pick right back up where the left off the night before.
At night we would go back up the mountain to our camp site and spend time as a team talking around a camp fire. Two nights during the week the older kids in the orphanage (ranging from ages 14-18) came up and spent time with them. We played games and some of our team members had a lot of fun being silly around the fire. We made smores and taught them e.r.s. and just enjoyed getting to know their hearts. One afternoon they came up and the boys from our team and their boys went on a hike while the girls made braclets and did tie-dye and just talked.
We played some of the middle aged kids in soccer and they beat us hard core... but it was a lot of fun to watch them.
We went to their church on sunday and on thursday night and got to hear worship in spanish and hear the pastor speak his heart on perserverence. The message was really good in spanish, but the translator was interpreting what was being said and not translating it, so I felt like the people who couldn't speak spanish really missed out on some awesome words. Plus I really liked that as he talked he used a ton of scripture passages and they were located throughout the bible not just in the new testament. I really like worshipping in spanish because I love listening to the people and the environment in which they build to worship, its completely different than the states even though it is set up in a similar way.
One little boy whose family is from the chruch really broke my heart. His name was David and he was 5 months old. His mom is really poor so when he first came she wasn't making enough breastmilk to keep him full so he screamed a lot. The Amercan workers (lauren and geralyn) have been helping her by supplying diapers and checking on him every week. But while we were there he got to spend the day with Lauren (and mostly me because I stole him) at the orphanage. He was such a precious heart it just broke me to see that he was behind developmentally and was so tiny.
Murray fell in love with a little boy named Jaunito, and they bonded over bubbles and calling each other "patos" (ducks). I always like watching him play with kids because I love that he enjoys it and doesn't just do it because I love it. He's really good with kids. One day he'll make a good dad.
There was a little boy in the nursery who had C.P. and was about two, and he was my buddy most of the week, just because unless I was playing with him and loving on him, he would be in a swing and no one would be interacting with him. But there was a precious 8 month old who was learning to crawl. There was also two older kids, one almost two and the other already two who we spent our time chasing around the room. This week being in an orphanage made me realize that this really is what I'm supposed to do. Because I was at peace there.
The lord really broke me for the broken on this trip, the puppy who was dying and was kicked around by kids, the high schooler who was mute, the little boy with C.P., and David who had his first full belly that lasted all day quite possibly since he's been born.
I was also under attack quite a bit because I was facing lies of inadequacy in my speaking skills, but I made it through and it was good. It was hard at times being on the trip with Murray because we had a hard time finding that balance in being with each other and being with the team, but I feel like even though it was hard and we had struggles with it, we did an ok job, but even better we now know for the next trip we take.
Being back has been hard, especially since I got super sick when we entered the states, but also because I love the simplicity of their life, and I loved taking part in that, and spending my mornings sitting at the foot of the cross that overlooks the orphanage and listening to the kids as they were getting up and getting ready to play. It was perfect, the scenary, my bible, and the sound of laughter was the perfect place for me to encounter God, and there was no doubt that the Lord was in La Mission and working through that town, it was so apparent that if you didn't see it you were trying not to.
Isaiah 61:1-3
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