Oh How He loves…

Thank you all who prayed for my safety today and my time with Diego. We had a great day :) I was able to spend time with Diego and two other boys that I also got to know 5 years ago—Erick and Denis. Two other volunteers came with me. They showed us around the orphanage (Nuestros Pequeños Hermanos), which is on a huge plot of land. They have their own chickens, cows, rabbits, and fruit and vegetable fields. It was just great to spend time with them, talking, laughing, listening to music and playing a bit of soccer. All three are really fun and sweet boys. I still can’t believe how big they are now though; 5 years ago they were all between 10-12 years old and half my size! I’m hoping to visit them somewhat regularly since they live only an hour away and it’s really easy to get there.

Erick, me, Diego and Denis :) 

 Diego “tricked” me into an eating a hot chile contest, where he ended up swallowing the chile whole and I ended up chewing it and having a mouth that was on fire. I’ve never eaten something so hot in my entire life. They boys got a total kick out of it. Haha.

with Denis

with Erick

with Diego

After I got back to Emmanuel this evening, as I was spending time with the Lord I was completely overcome by how much He loves me. As I wrote in my last post, He’s been pressing into me His promise that He will never forget me, and today was a breaking point for me. Not only does God love me enough to come and die on the cross for me, which alone completely seals His infinite love for me, but He chooses, He delights to pour out His love on me in so many beautiful ways that are shaped just for me. My time with Diego and these boys 5 years ago was one of the most intense, life-changing and heart-wrenching experiences I’ve ever had. It’s an experience that touches one of the deepest parts of my heart. I didn’t deserve that experience in the first place, and so the fact that God would bring me back after 5 years to live so close to Diego, to be able to see him and these other boys again totally breaks me. I can’t put into words how cherished and loved I feel by this gift from the Lord. I serve a God who indeed is good beyond words, who cares so infinitely about our hearts, who delights in us His creation, and who loves to give us good gifts that we don’t deserve. Tonight He has filled me with such joy as I drink in His in comprehendible love. In moments like this when His love is so visible, so tangible, so overwhelming I ask myself how many times and in how many ways does He need to show me that He truly does LOVE me for me to trust Him? When I experience His love so powerfully like this, the only possible response is to joyfully and fully surrender to Him. How beautiful the times when surrender is so easy because His love is made so incredibly evident, so irresistibly true. So today I delight in the truth that I am His beloved lily that He has redeemed to love and serve Him. 

Never Forgotten

...I formed you; you are my servant;

O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me.

Isaiah 44: 21

You will not be forgotten by me. This has been God’s message to me these last couple weeks as I have been dwelling on His promises in Isaiah 40-50. He has been reminding me of this promise through His word, through many different blessings, through opening doors for me to serve Him, as well as God meeting me with His presence in the midst of times of sadness and fear. God has been reminding me again and again that He loves me, that He loves ME, Amy Schuman, who He has created with the passions, dreams, hopes and gifts that He has given to me. Every time He opens a specific door and gives me a blessing that is shaped just for me, I am amazed at not only how well He knows my heart but also how much He cares about the way He has created me. He has created me to serve Him in ways particular to the way He has created me. When I think about this I get so excited and feel so incredibly blessed.

Some sweet blessings in the last couple weeks….

Library project: Since I am going to be the reading teacher and spending large chunks of my day in the Elementary school library I’ve decided to “spruce-up” the library a tad ;) At first it looked like just a storage room for books. With some help from other volunteers and some visiting teams we’ve rearranged the bookcases, reorganized the books and moved a new table in. We still have quite a bit of work to do, I want to catalog all the books in the library (another volunteer is taking this part of the project) and decorate the library with rugs, pillows and paintings so that my reading groups will be in a place that is colorful, comfortable and encourages reading. Another volunteer here is an amazing seamstress so she is helping a ton with this. I’m also hoping to open up the library on the weekends so that the kids can come in and read. They have very few chances to read for fun here because they don’t have books in the kids’ houses (they don’t tend to treat books well). I’m really excited about this project and excited that others have gotten involved too. This coming week I will start testing the 5^th grade on their reading with a test I have created. Please pray that the library would be a blessing to the children here and that God would enable me to test the children well.

Discipulado: Discipleship Program. I mentioned to another volunteer about my passion for discipleship/talking with young women about God and this past week I was invited to help out with the discipleship program here! I’m really excited to get involved and connect with the older girls!

Dancing: I recently got permission to start teaching dance here for the older girls in the medium girls house that I am helping out in. There are about 12 older girls that are the leaders in the medium girls house. I’ve loved getting to know them, and dance is another way to have fun with them, get to know them and talk with them about God. We had our first lesson today. Please pray that this would be a blessing to them and that God would grow our relationships.

Bible Study: The other volunteer in the medium girls house who is in her late 20s and has been a missionary since her late teens recently asked me to pray about helping her start a Bible study for the older girls in our house. I would absolutely love to do this, please pray that God would guide us in this. Please pray that God would show us ways to reach out to the girls in our house, to love and serve them. Pray that they might come to trust us and let us into their lives so that we might speak the truth into their lives and love them more deeply.

Visiting Diego: Tomorrow I will be going back to the first orphanage that I ever volunteered at, which is here in Honduras about an hour away. There is one boy (Diego) there that made a huge impact on me 5 years ago, who I was able to see last summer and will be seeing tomorrow. Please pray that God would bless our time together and that I would get there and back safely.

Friends: I have been praying that God would provide some friends here that I could have true fellowship with. At first I wasn’t praying much about it, just waiting but recently I’ve felt much more the need for friends here to turn to. So last week I started praying more about it, that God would lead me to who He wants me to open up to and give me wisdom regarding this. He’s answered that prayer quite quickly. There are two girls that I’ve seen God put into my path and drawing me to. One, is the other volunteer in the medium girls house with me, she is originally from Peru and has a huge heart for the Lord, for discipleship and missions. She’s been a great encouragement to me. She recently got her 5 year Honduran residency (she’s started praying that I will stay longer than 8 months). The other is the volunteer who was with me when the little boy accepted Christ. She also is getting her 5 year Honduran residency. She’s coming with me to Diego’s orphanage tomorrow and we’ve been chosen to go to a conference in Tegucigalpa this coming week on how to care better for people with disabilities (paid for by Emmanuel). She’s started up a special education class for kids that aren’t in school right now. We’re both really excited about this conference.

God has been blessing me so much here so far. He has opened so many doors and provided for me. He’s continued to remind me that He has not forgotten me, and that He promises that He will never forget me, that He has created me, created me to serve Him in ways that He has especially designed me to, ways that make my heart come alive.

Please pray for all these opportunities, that God would give me wisdom and guide me and that I would wait patiently on Him in all things.

A party in heaven and on earth :)

Here is a picture of the little party we had tonight to celebrate this boy's salvation :) The other volunteer (who was with me this morning) and I bought him some fun treats in town today. He was really excited :) Was also really special praying with him tonight before he went to bed, was so sweet to hear him pray.

Here is also another picture of us yesterday on Easter Sunday (some girls straightened my hair the night before with an clothes iron haha). 

A new brother in Christ today :)

The boy I have been working with accepted Christ as his Savior this morning! Another volunteer and I went through the gospel with him this morning, reading to him several Bible verses and drawing the picture of us separated from God and Jesus being the bridge to knowing God. He understood what we were sharing and wanted to pray to receive God's forgiveness and the salvation of his soul. I feel so blessed to have witnessed God's power to save the soul of this precious boy. I rejoice with such overflowing joy knowing that when I get to heaven this boy will be there too, able to walk and perfectly healed from all that he has had to endure in this life. And I rejoice knowing that he can experience the love of God and the freedom of God not only in heaven but here and now on this earth. What a great and good God we serve. All of heaven is celebrating right now the adoption of a new child of God today! Come and rejoice with us :)