this is what it's all about

After quite a trying week, today was a great day. This week we had a visiting youth group from Texas that came to the house and did the camp with the girls. They came with a gigantic group (230 youth!) but only about 13 of them stayed with us. They did lots of cool things and were such a blessing to the girls… and our girls really enjoyed it.

It was cool to get to know some of the girls, but it was hard not being able to really spend lots of time with our girls and invest in them.

All in all, it was a trying week, a tiring week, and there were a lot of emotionally exhausting days. But there were good days too so I don’t want to sound completely negative.

Tuesday we went to Cheesecake Bistro and had magical cheesecake and it was... well… magical.
Wednesday we went to New Orleans Mission to take some food and that was pretty eye-opening. We also had to see a family with two precious little girls get turned away from being able to stay at BFH because the mother didn’t want to agree to get a job. And that is heartbreaking.
A prostitute who has gotten too far into her lifestyle and is stuck.
A child who is stuck with an abusive family member.
A girl who gets stopped by some strange man who tries to talk her into getting in the car with him on the way to camp and she is terrified and shaking and weeping.
Like I said, an emotionally exhausting week.

And I don’t understand why it happens the way it does and why these two precious girls have to be on the streets because of a mother who doesn’t want to work, or why these girls aren’t even safe to walk down the street.

But then…

Today the Texas group was having their small group time with the girls and they told me that one of my girls was acting pretty interested in the gospel and all and so she and I were talking at lunch and…

… she got saved today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And let me tell you something, I don’t care how much crap goes on, I don’t care how emotionally drained I feel, I don’t care when I am afraid of how I am going to deal with upcoming weeks and how much God breaks my heart all summer long.

This is what it is all about.

And now I can look forward to my 8 o’clock date with Sandor in the morning. Or should I say en la manana?