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 :)

Praise God!

Tonight, after tucking the boy I have been working with into bed, he told me that he wants to accept Jesus Christ!! I sat on his bed with him just holding him in my arms as we both cried. I told him that a lot of my friends and I have been praying for him to accept Christ. He wants to pray tomorrow morning with me and another volunteer who had a great gospel conversation with him a couple weeks ago. Please pray that his heart remains open and that nothing would prevent him from becoming a child of God tomorrow. I am so overcome by the goodness and power of God to answer prayer and save the lost. Indeed today He has shown me again why He came and died, why we celebrate Easter today. He came so that His magnificent love might be poured out upon undeserving sinners, so that we could be forgiven and adopted into His family forever to the praise of His Holy name.

I can't thank you enough for your prayers, I am overwhelmed by how God has answered them.

Please Pray...

Please pray for the boy that I have been working with. We had a great day the day after I posted about him, but since then it's been really difficult. God has been working on me a lot regarding patient and being ok with this boy hating me at times and throwing fits. Yesterday afternoon I  was really struggling having patience with him, so I cried out to God to help me and particularly to give me compassion and love for this boy when I have absolutely none left of my own.

He has been answering that prayer in some powerful ways lately.

Yesterday and this morning I found out a bit more about this boy's past, which includes maternal abuse and a public orphanage (they have terrible reputations here). But again tonight after a long and difficult day today with him and a lot of stubbornness around bedtime I wasn't very full of patience and love. Tonight he was refusing to sleep and so was singing at first about how boring his day was then ended up singing some Christian songs (he loves to sing). I was sitting outside with another volunteer when he began to cry really loudly. This isn't unusual for him, he cries very often. I waited at first thinking it was because he was trying to get attention/bother me (because he was angry) so hoping he would stop but then he started crying out my name so I went to see what was wrong. When I entered his room he was really scared and said that he had heard a voice talking to him at his window, he immediately threw his arms around me and buried his head in my arms (only a little earlier he had been really angry with me). 

Immediately God flooded me with love and compassion for him and a real sense that there was a spiritual battle going on.

I sat with him on his bed and reassured him over and over that I was there and that God was there with us. I prayed over him God's peace and protection and prayed against any evil that was near in the name of Jesus. I held him, sang to him like my mom always did when I would get scared at night and told him I loved him. On my way back to the volunteer house I prayed outside his window with the other volunteer as I promised him I would.

I know our God is the Almighty God, and that for those who are His own nothing evil can harm them. Tonight God woke me up to the spiritual battle in this boy's life. There is a battle going on for this little boy's soul and for some reason God has chosen me to enter into this battle, to stand in the gap. This boy believes in God but I do not know if he has surrendered to Him, if he has genuine saving faith. Please join with me in praying for his soul to be saved, and for God to guard his mind, heart, body and soul in the name of Jesus Christ. Please also pray for me that I would not lose sight of the spiritual battle, that God would give me all sufficiency in all things in Christ Jesus for what He is calling me to. 

New adventures...

This morning I met with the volunteer coordinator about my new responsibilities (aka adventures) since the boy I have been working with is starting to transition out of the clinic. The meeting went well. For one I will be helping out some in the medium girls house--in the mornings and at lunch time. I've already become friends with several of them, they are really sweet (age range is typically around 8-13 years old I think, but there are many exceptions). I will still be tutoring the boy I've been working with in the mornings and taking him to the medium boys house in the afternoons/for dinner. Spending time in the medium boys house lately has been really fun. The boys can get into a lot of trouble but they can also be really sweet and are always entertaining :) 

I also asked the volunteer coordinator if there are any needs in the school right now, which led to talking with the school director. And he has assigned me to be the reading teacher in the Elementary school! A little while back they had reading groups, but the woman who was leading them had to be switched to the office so there hasn't been anyone to lead reading groups for the kids lately, so that is what I'll be doing! Starting after Easter (the kids get next week off from school for Holy Week), I will be starting reading groups for grades 4, 5 and 6. I spent some time in their library today looking at their collection of sets of books, they have about 10-12 sets of books, all of which are Spanish versions of books originally in English (e.g. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe: El León, La Bruja y El Ropero and My Side of the Mountain: Mi Rincón de la Montaña). The selection is not bad but when considering different levels of reading that narrows the selection down quite a bit for each level. I am already considering using some of the money I have raised to buy more books. As far as other chapter books that kids can check out from the library there are only a couple other shelves full, which I would also love to do something about. 

Please pray for my preparation for these reading groups, there is no set curriculum or even guidelines for them so I get to create it all. I am really excited about this, I loved reading as a child, love discussing books and love the chance to be creative. I feel so blessed that God has opened this door for me, I feel like there couldn't be a more perfect job in the school for me. My hope is that the children I work with will come to love reading, that it will open up for them new ways of thinking, expand their imaginations and speak to them eternal truths in a powerful way. Stories are one of the most powerful modes of communicating truth, indeed our Heavenly Father is the greatest Author of the greatest story of all time. Please pray that God would work through these reading groups to reach these children. 

I still have a strong desire to work with the older girls in some fashion. Unfortunately volunteers are not normally assigned to the big girls house because they can be really hard to work with and there is a lot of need with the younger kids. I am hoping to talk with one of the leaders of the discipleship program here soon to see if I can get involved with that though, so please pray for that. I also would love to start a praise dance group for the older girls, which I need to talk with the volunteer coordinator about. 

Above all please pray that God would be leading and guiding me in all these things. I can be quite a dreamer and want to do everything, but most of all I want to be where God wants me to be. So I pray that He would simply not open doors that are not meant to be opened.

Thanks so much for your prayers and support!