Juan 15:16

I write today with a bit of a heavy heart. Cola and Sydney, the two rottweiler guard dogs who live at the house, got outside and attacked another dog. At first, it looked like the dog they attacked died as a result, but now there is word that he is actually alright. Either way, we're all a little shaken up (and also more terrified than we already were of these huge dogs). I know it sounds strange, but the whole ordeal seemed kind of like a trigger. Everything on the trip so far has been chill and fun and lovely, hanging out with the group, traveling, seeing sunny Nicaragua. But suddenly I've started feeling heavy with all the questions I had the first time I came here over spring break. I'm struck today by how very precious life is, and how much it breaks me to pieces knowing that so many are treated as if their life is anything but.

This morning a few of us went to House of Hope. It's an organization with buildings in Cedro that ministers to women from Managua and surrounding areas. Their goal is to give women an escape from prostitution, which is so huge in the city. As a part of their program, they drive women in and give them opportunities to do things like make jewelry, which will be sold to give them a different source of income. This isn't an organization that MPI has worked with in the past, but we went today to check it out because they said they could use some help. It was so so so so cool.

There was a huge variety of ages in the women who were there. I sat at a table cutting magazines into strips that were made into really neat beads, and to my left was a group of about three preteens. They were precious and beautiful. (and when I mean beautiful, I really mean GORGEOUS....what is with Nicaraguan women? Pretty much all the time, I feel gross and my face is shiny and disgusting, and then I'll look at someone from Nica and they look like supermodels and I feel ewww) Anyway, they were so sweet to me as I was struggling through my spanish and feeling awkward. They took time to ask me where I was from and what I was studying and what I wanted to be (oh, my favorite question). One of them, Margarita, asked me if I wanted to learn how to glue the strips into beads, and then showed me how and said mine was "muy bonita" even though it wasn't. We talked about our mutual love for Justin Bieber. The time went by in such an enjoyable way, and it was only in the end when it hit me why those girls were there. These precious, precious children either had been involved in, were still involved in, or were at hisk risk for being prostitutes.

The thought makes me nauseaous. I cannot even fathom someone abusing them, degrading them, buying their bodies as if they were products sold at a market. Horrible isn't even the right word....I don't know what is, I just know that none of it makes sense. Those things shouldn't exist. None of those women should be left with prostitution as the only way to support their families. And yet, it does exist, and it sucks and I'm so angry and overwhelmed and broken by it. I randomly started thinking about this speaker named Budda who talks at Young Life camps. He goes on this rant (a good one, but rant is definietly a good word to describe it) about how women are princesses, and to see ouselves as anything else is wrong beccause we are princesses to God. I kept hearing him screaming those words in my head, and looked at these girls, and wanted to scream it at them too. "You are a princess. never ever ever ever let anyone tell you otherwise." Oh God, how I pray that they can grow to believe that.

As we were leaving, one of the little 11-year-old girls from my table group handed me a piece of paper she had colored and decorated at school. On it was some flowers she had drawn framing a bible verse, Juan (John) 15:16. It says: "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit - fruit that will last." Wow. I was taken back first of all by the sweetness of her gift, but to read that was almost overwhelming. Here I was so angry and frustrated and feeling entitled to these things - and here at the same time was this God who has a big plan and says "No, you didn't choose me....I'm the one who has high dreams for you, and a plan that is lasting and bigger than this world." I've got to trust that. I've got to know that the Lord has high dreams for these girls and a plan for redemption and a plan to bear fruit through people like the House of Hope folks and through all the women. It's so easy to egotistically assume that we need to come up with a good plan of action.....but then I remember that what needs to happen is acknowledgment of the one who gave us the ability to act in the first place, who loved us enough to choose us for this action and to let us be witness to its fruit.

So today I saw Jesus in an 11-year-old chica. And tonight I saw Him in the joy of students like Gabriel and Zeke in advanced english. Maybe tomorrow I'll see Him in someone else, and thursday I'll see Him in Chureca. I'm not sure what that will mean, but I'm eagerly anticipating it. I'm so grateful that He chose me.