Breaking Through

We have now spent several days at the Teen Girls Center, which has been both a blessing and a struggle for me personally.  The girls' home is beautiful in of itself, but is made even more beautiful by the sparkling young ladies that live there.  Each girl has so much potential and is full of qualities, both hidden and apparent, that demonstrate to me the care and love of our Father.  However, because of many of the deep wounds that each girl carries, they have their areas of struggle - which, for the majority of them, includes problems with motivation, a lack of appreciating what has been set before them, and a mischievous streak.  Mostly, these girls just need a lot of love.  A LOT of love.  Unfortunately, due to various circumstances and their "mischievous streak" they have no one permanently living with them full-time who is acting as a mother figure (something they need desperately).

So, we have arrived right here in the middle of their lives.  We are trying to connect as much as possible, despite the language barrier, in light of their wounds, and while being pretty exhausted and with low morale within the team.  All of these have been frustrating, but the last one, low morale, has been probably the biggest struggle for me.  Being the kind of person that gets their energy from others, it's easy for me to get discouraged when we are not connecting or it seems like we are on separate pages -- Interestingly, we are communicating wonderfully, and there have been no specific problem, however we all feel like there is just a heaviness hanging over our team and a disunity despite wonderful times of fellowship.  Any prayer that this "heaviness" would be overthrown would be so greatly appreciated!!!

Anywho, back to my original train of thought - language barrier is hard.  Not being able to connect at deeper levels with the girls, due to this, is hard.  We are not given the luxury of a translator at all times, although the majority of the girls' english is great (So much better than my Sinhala).  We want to do different activities too with the girls, team-building exercises, confidence-building activities, etc., but this is extremely hard to do with the language barrier. 

All this to say, we have been doing great, but by this afternoon, morale was running low -- BUT!!! - We had a breakthrough!!!!!! So, we had a debriefing meeting for just the ten of us, which was nice to remove ourselves a little.  It ended up lasting 2 hours, all of which was filled with talking - we are all girls after all!  But it was basically a time of venting frustration, and I will be honest, was a little waring because it made me more acutely aware of my frustrations.  Leaving the meeting, we went upstairs to lead the girls in a Bible study we started.  We are going through Ruth, which seemed to be a good idea at the time, but I am afraid now that the introduction of Boaz may add a tinge of the idea of a "white knight" riding in on a horse to save the day, when really it is God who saves and loves us completely - anyways, I digress.  But we went through the second chapter, I thought that I was much less prepared to lead than the previous days, but it ended up being such a wonderful answer to prayer!  I don't really now how to explain, which seems comical after all this leading up to this moment, but we came to a time of sharing of how God has worked in our lives.  No one wanted to share.  No one.  So Jess went, then I went, then slowly, girl after girl started telling stories of God's provision in her life.  It was so uplifting.  

But then the really cool part happened during their nightly prayer meeting, which we had right after the Bible study.  We started sharing "testimonies" of how God was providing, working, with us and the girls started individually affirming the girls who had earlier stated in their meeting that they needed affirmation.  For example one of the girls said she felt like she couldn't talk to any of the girls on a deeper level and that was one of her most valuable traits, leaving her to feel ineffective - and one of the girls thanked God for a conversation she had with her the night before!! Time after time, girls thanked or praised God and in the process addressed many of the frustrations, fears we had JUST previously voiced in private.  God gave us what we needed to hear!  God cared so much about each of our concerns! It was amazing!

Computer is about to die!!!!  Shoot.  Oh well!  Sorry for verbal vomit.  

Really fast:  God is teaching me that He is faithful.  He has been faithful in the past and will never leave me nor forsake me.  I can't wait to see what His plans are!  A good friend wrote to me in a note: "God doesn't hide things from you.  He hides things for you."  I liked that a lot - thx Leanne!

Prayer Requests:

- Sickness to leave the team - I have an infected split lip - I am semi-hoping it painlessly grows larger so I look like I got in some knock-out fight.  But seriously, other girls are feeling under the weather, so for them!

-  Morale to boost in the team.  That we would grow closer.  That I would stop being critical.

- My walk with God.  That it would be strengthened in ways I couldn't even imagine.

- Oh BIG request - De Vissers are sick.  I will write more on this when I have more time.  PLEASE keep them in prayer!  Auntie Ophelia and Uncle Adrian are in pain.  

Miss so many people!  Bye!