Count it all Joy..... (James 1:2)

There are times in life that I have faced disappointments. Some bigger than others, but always the Lord has shown me that this only means He has something better in store than what I had at first thought. I have even learned to be excited for such disappointments, knowing that something really great was surely coming up ahead. At the start of this week I am facing a disappointment in which I am having trouble coming around to that place of excitement. I had learned that the kids would be on break from school for one week this coming Friday. “ Great!” I thought, “more fun times ahead!” Then I learned that all but 3 would be going. “That’s sad.” I thought, but it’s just a week. Then, on Sunday I learned that that the date was changed and it would be this Tuesday and that it was not just one week, but nearly 20 days!

I do not think I have to tell you for you to know that all of Monday I was either in tears or near there all morning to think about it. Not only would I be missing these little ones that I have already begun to fall in love with, but many of them do not even want to go, their faces are down trodden and some even cry (one girl even broke the key to the lock that opens the front gate out of the Haven). Where do they go, you wonder? I wonder too! Some go to a distant relative, some to a “family friend”, while some even go back to the parent in which they had been removed due to abusive and neglectful situations! It all makes for a chaotic set of kids and a frustrated me! Even the housemother, Mandy, had an awful day yesterday as her stomach turned while she tried to get them where they were going safely. Especially she worries for those with AIDS that they will be given their medicine.

Again I tell myself that God loves them more than I. He is the one who saw them in their mother’s womb. He is the one who has their days written out before their lives began. He is the one who made their angels to be before his throne day and night in petition on their behalf. He is the one who rescued them and brought them to this Haven to begin with! So of course he goes with them now. As I tell myself this, I am able to then remember that if their days are written out, then so is mine. It is no doubt God brought me here and he has each day of this trip planned out. This is not the end, but just the beginning. I get the sense all the time that there is a part who the Lord is that I haven’t met yet. Maybe it’s that part of him that is here in Africa. Outside these Haven walls is a village in Omaruru filled with street kids who are just the same as the ones inside the Haven before they had a place to call their own. So, I think we will be stepping out.....

And of course, we still have these 3, special 3, who have no family at all or family friend. No where to go. And we hope to take them on a few adventures with us beyond this small town!