Epilogue

If you’re reading this, thank you. The teacher in me wants to ask for a show of hands for how many actually read all of my posts and award a prize. Maybe a sticker for your sticker chart?

Seriously, the love that just kept coming all year proved wrong all the warnings that said our friends back home would forget to reach out, would maybe make us feel forgotten. I disagree, thank You, Jesus!

“God is just. He will not forget how

hard you have worked or the

love the you have shown for Him

by helping His people,

which you continue to do.

We don't want you to do this

just for a few years,

but as long as you live.

We want this kind of ministry

to become second nature to you

so that your hope will become

even more a reality.”

(Hebrews 6:10,11; Clear Word Paraphrase)

Hands and Feet

I remember stirring fried rice on one of my last days at Familia Feliz and looking at my hands. My thumb was cut from chopping onions for supper earlier that week. My palm was bandaged from a deep scratch from when I pulled boros out of Sole’s cat’s nose. The back of my other hand was blistering from oil burns from frying empanadas. My nails that I kept cut short were stained with beet juice and had the ever-lingering fragrance of garlic under them. One finger had a bee sting while the other had a mosquito bite from the night before. My fingertips were calloused from playing my ukulele, then shredded from hand-grating an ungodly amount of carrots. My hands had more freckles than I came with because of the sun they absorbed. The little hairs were singed off from lighting the propane stove. I had a to-do list written on one hand from when my phone was occupied by a girl calling her family. And my wrist had a smiley face Pinky drew on.

These hands told a story.

I looked down at my feet. Chronically dirty, without having seen nail polish for a year, they were nothing that should ever be in a picture. My Chaco tan revealed how I never wore closed-toed shoes. One toenail was purple from kicking something in the dark one night. The top of one foot was bruised from dropping a bench we were carrying to a Friday worship. My feet were calloused and cracked and stained. These feet had been through the mud for a year, waded around my flooded kitchen every time it rained (and were slathered in precautionary fungal cream after those days). They were tired, too, from standing all day, every day, every week, every month, chasing little laughing girls, and getting out of bed to find the one who was crying in the dark.

My feet told a story.

When Jesus asks us to be His hands and feet on this earth, those hands need to be used and worn. Those feet need to have walked the walk we talk.

They need to tell a story. His story.

Prayers I’ve Learned to Pray

Lord, let everything I do be done from overflow.

Lord, make me be love to these kids.

Lord, let them see You.

Lord, invite me into Your heart today.

Lord, be their Father Figure, Best Friend, and Personal Savior.

Llénanos con Tu Espíritu Santo y esta casa con Tus ángeles de poder.

Lord, be with Las Lilas.

Lord, bless Familia Feliz.

Confession

“Our confession of His faithfulness is Heaven’s chosen agency for revealing Christ to the world…that which will be the most effectual is the testimony of our own experience” (The Desire of Ages, p. 347).

This year I’ve written down my own experience with God. So this is my confession, that God is faithful.

This is my confession, that love is the most powerful force in the universe.

Nobody

Why You ever chose me

Has always been a mystery
All my life I've been told I belong
At the end of the line
With all the other not-quites
With all the never-get-it-rights
But it turns out they're the ones

You were looking for
All this time

'Cause I'm just a nobody
Trying to tell everybody
All about Somebody
Who saved my soul
Ever since You rescued me
You gave my heart a song to sing
I'm living for the world to see
Nobody but Jesus
I'm living for the world to see
Nobody but Jesus

Moses had stage fright
And David brought a rock to a sword fight
You picked twelve outsiders nobody would have chosen

And You changed the world
Well the moral of the story is
Everybody's got a purpose
So when I hear that devil start talking to me
saying, "Who do you think you are?"
I say,

I'm just a nobody
Trying to tell everybody
All about Somebody
Who saved my soul
Ever since You rescued me
You gave my heart a song to sing
I'm living for the world to see
Nobody but Jesus
I'm living for the world to see
Nobody but Jesus

So let me go down, down, down in historyAs another blood-bought faithful member of a familyAnd if they all forget my name, well that's fine with meI'm living for the world to seeNobody but Jesus