Because God Calls us to Forgive.

The past few days have been crazy, fun, and very emotional! This afternoon the 3 other interns and I held our first ever Oasis Field Day. We played a lot of different games including spinning on a bat and kicking a soccer goal, frisbee throw, obstacle course (complete with diapers filled with melted candy bars), bobbing for apples in water and marshmallows in powdered sugar, and messy dodgeball. Dodgeball definitely had to be my favorite. We created a concoction of cottage cheese, tuna, mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, pudding, graham crackers, and a few other things to coat the dodgeballs in. It just ended up being a messy, ball-throwing free for all. I had the privilege of documenting the whole thing and ended up with 376 pictures. When I get back to the States I will have so many pictures to go through! As of today, after almost 5 weeks here, I have taken over 750 pictures. Needless to say, this trip will be very well documented after all is said and done!

I heard a story the other night from another intern and my roommate for the trip, Marissa. She was talking to one of the girls here and asked her about her story and how she ended up at The Oasis. After hearing her story, Marissa was shocked at the amount of abuse and heartache that she had suffered before coming here. This is a young girl who had been very upset last weekend when her mom didn´t come to visitor's day. Marissa and I were both very confused about after hearing her story. Marissa asked this girl, ¨Why do you want to see your Mom after all that she did to you?¨ Her response: ¨Because God calls us to forgive.¨ That has been one of the most powerful stories I have heard during my time here so far. Not only has this girl come to know the Lord, but she is a living example of true forgiveness. She has no hate, anger, or bitterness toward her Mom, only forgiveness. That kind of love on earth is hard to grasp, and it is just a small shadow of the love and forgiveness that Christ has for us. We are all sinners, and NONE of us are any better than the parents of these girls. We all need Christ, and we all need forgiveness. After hearing that story, the conviction in my heart was unreal, and my affections were so stirred towards God and His love, grace, and sacrifice on the Cross for our sins.

It's been a very good couple of days. I finally feel like I am getting into a groove, but I have to be SO careful not to start relying on my own strength. God in His power and mercy has brought me this far, and it is so crazy of me to think even for a second that I don't need him anymore than I did before to carry me through the rest of my time here. Today, however, has been uniquely challenging because today is my 6 month anniversary with my boyfriend. Now, compared to my parents who have been married for over 25 years, 6 months doesn´t seem like much to a lot of people, but it's still hard not to be there to celebrate with him. As with every other aspect of my life, God is teaching me that I have to COMPLETELY give this relationship up to him. Our main goal is to glorify Him in this relationship, and we cannot fully do that if I try to hold on to the relationship as if it's ultimate purpose is to benefit us. More than that, I have just been thinking about home a lot today. I still have a little over 5 weeks left, and at times I can grow weary when I think about that. As I have said before, I have never been this disconnected from my family, friends, and church family, especially not for such long period of time.

All I can do every single day is completely trust in the Lord. Each morning I have to check my heart to make sure my motives are pure. I sometimes find myself thinking that this is somehow supposed to be about benefiting me. While there is no doubt that I am benefiting because God is growing me and teaching me so many different things, that's not the end goal. The end goal is to glorify God. In this season of life, during this trip, that manifests itself by serving these sweet girls to the best of my ability (which is only ¨my¨ ability because God has provided me the strength).

I pray daily that God will show me how I am supposed to serve them each day and how I can be used by Him that day. I am enjoying my time with these girls so much, and every day, I realize that the more time I spend with them, the harder it will be to say goodbye. Please continue to pray for these girls and for my heart during this time to continually be stirred towards the love and grace of our Sweet King and Heavenly Father.