It's FINALLY time! Tomorrow morning I will finally get to start working at The Oasis and it is an understatement to say that I am beyond excited! I am so ready to meet all of those sweet girls and love them as much as I can! My only desire is to show them the Love of God in any way that I can! I'm so anxious to be there and build relationships that I know will stay with me for many years to come. While I know there will be challenges, I have no doubt that God's strength and love will bring me through, as it has so many time already.
Orientation with the other interns has been a lot of fun! We watched Barcelona BTHO Manchester U! Whoop! Messi absolutely dominated. The best part about it was watching it with about 15 jovenes that Mike and Sandi do a lot of work with! We all repped our Barcelona jerseys and had a blast. We also watched a beautiful and moving documentary called Reparando which highlights a very dangerous area in Guatemala city known as La Limonada. I highly recommend this movie to everyone! I plan on ordering a copy when I get back to the States. Prepare for your heart to be broken for these people.
The documentary also highlighted The Guatemala City dump. It is one of the largest dumps in Central America, the length of nearly 24 football fields. Every day, thousands of men and women who live right next to the dump sift through garbage for 8-10 hours everyday trying to find things of value that can be recycled for money. Most people make barely $3-$5 everyday. We saw that dump today. The smell alone was enough to make my stomach hurt. Since it was a Sunday we only saw one or two scavengers but it was all I could do not to start crying. The amount of poverty and hardship of these people is a direct effect of the brokenness and sin of this world. I thought back to how much I have in The States and how blessed I have been. My heart absolutely broke. I could only look at the dump for a few minutes before I had to turn away. It was absolutely heart wrenching. God is showing me so much and from the short amount of time that I have been here, God has placed a very specific prayer on my heart for this country! It is such a beautiful place but it also has so much darkness. The believers here have so much hope and joy from God! I feel so blessed that God has allowed me to see that and learn about these people and their culture for this short time.
I still miss my amazing family and friends from The States but I've fallen in love with this place. It is still so challenging, and God has revealed so much about my heart that has not been easy to deal with. I know that it will continue to be challenging but I see so much of Him in this beautiful place. I have heard and seen some very difficult things. I have a feeling that when I leave this place in July, I will leave a piece of my heart here as well.
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