For Your Kingdom, for our children, for the sake of every nation.....

Let it be said of us
While we walked among the living
Let it be said of us
By the ones we leave behind
Let it be said of us
That we lived to be a blessing for life

Let it be said of us
That we gave to reach the dying
Let it be said of us
By the fruit we leave behind
Let it be said of us
That our legacy is blessing for life

This day
You set life, you set death right before us,
This day
Every blessing and curse is a choice now
And we will choose to be a blessing for life

Let it be said of us
That our hearts belonged to Jesus Let it be said of us
That we spoke the words of life
Let it be said of us
That our heritage is blessing for life

For your Kingdom, for our Children
For the sake of every nation
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We played this song at our TSCM Banquet this year for one of our slideshows and this week as I was with Alison and we spent time at Hermano Pedro, Amor Del Nino, time together and with Madi and Samuel, this song rang in my ears and within my heart and time and time again, the Lord just impressed it’s truth to me…God speaks to me in Guatemala, I am not sure how else to say it…I mean He speaks to me in many different "places" in life, but never so clearly, compassionately, passionately as He does here in Guatemala, I am so grateful…I have learned to hunger for it when I am Stateside, yearn for it while I am here and “too busy” to get away with Him and treasure and hide it in my heart when I hear His voice…this week it was through the children of Hermano Pedro and Madeline….


......this picture is what greeted us when we walked through the doors of Hermano Pedro…. behind bars, with two mattresses on the floor, obviously drugged, Ali and I walked up to talk to these two I couldn’t tell you ages…it was impossible to tell, both where in jumper suits, the young man’s had slippers attached to them that were so small, they must have almost folded his feet in half and we stood and looked through the bars and they sat on the mattresses and looked at us, eye to eye…the young man obviously felt uncomfortable and leaned towards the young woman, who was the size of a 10 year old in the States and I would guess she was in her 20s, had her hair buzzed off, playing with her hands and she, sensing his discomfort leaned over and kissed his forehead….being locked behind bars or even drugged couldn’t keep these two from drawing comfort and strength from each other. It was such a beautiful picture, I think I saw tears in Alison's eyes. We then moved further into the ward and Alison was able to meet so many of the children, spend time with little Alex, Sam Sam and we also visited the older guys and Alison thrilled a couple of them by buying them cokes…later when I was saying goodbye to Willy ( pictured with Alison below) he stumbled around a little to find the right words and with his beautiful face beaming he said in Spanish that Alison was his new friend and that she was the friend of his heart….there is no doubt as to why everyone I have known who has had the privilege of spending time in Hermano Pedro is drawn back and can never forget or get enough of the beauty in and of these children, their unbelievable strength, their endurance, their joy, their pain and their hope....

One day this week as Alison and I were sitting in the park with the babies, two little street boys came up, I think their original intent was to ask for money, but before they could even finish that sentence or hold their hands up for any coins I would give them, they saw Madi and immediately knelt down beside her stroller…I sat and watched as those barefoot, ragged dirty, poor little boys and Madi enjoyed each other to the fullest they laughed, tickled her and peppered me with questions about her…we had a blast, they were so sweet and adorable but you know the thing that struck me the most was the absolute DELIGHT on Madi’s face...

…the next morning I woke up and as I laid there listening to her breathing ( uh…snoring) and thought back to the day before and I was struck again by my baby’s pure, untainted, unprejudiced, non judgmental love for those two little boys…She wasn’t turned off by how dirty they were, or didn’t have to "make" herself be kind and compassionate, she didn’t view her time with them as sacrificial, for sure not benevolent or merciful, she wasn't trying to "fix them"…she was just absolutely delighted to be with them, nothing more attached or beneath the surface…these were her people and she was thrilled they wanted to spend time with her. Do you have any idea how much joy that brought me and in the beautiful simplicity of the moment to realize that as dirty little hands reached out to hold Madi’s clean, chubby little hands that the only difference between Madi and those boys was that she was adopted (taking it to a spiritual realm as I don't know these little boys specific circumstances)…that’s it…no other difference and in her beautiful little baby way, God used Madi to once again show me the simplicity of the gospel and the joy He experiences in us and the freedom He desire for us to walk in the love of God.....we love, because He first loved us!



I realize that this is a ridiculously long post, but I couldn’t close without shouting from the rooftops that MY SISTER IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mary arrived on Saturday and you can only imagine that after 7 months of not seeing each other, the time we are having….it is about as perfect as life gets….I don’t think we have finished one full conversation yet and have started about a million, anyone listening in would think we were insane, but you know how sisters are…another week full of THIS is complete bliss!!! We stayed in the city over the weekend as Alison and Samuel left on an early morning flight today and we didn’t want to spend all our time driving back and forth to Antigua…so we have gone to the Guatemala City Zoo, walked in the mall OF COURSE Hyper Piaz and have seriously thought of setting up residency in the hotel’s Jacuzzi…we will head back to Antigua today, we already miss Alison and Sam and are so grateful for every sacrifice they made to come and stay for two wonderful weeks….More soon!