Ellas. Son. Maravillosas.

If y'all read Guillermo's post about all the San Juan festivals, I am grateful if you prayed for our performance! :) And I would like to say that the dance went pretty well-- praise God!! <3

There's actually another festival tonight, too, but I think our team is kinda San-Juan'ed out. In a side story, when I first started researching Paraguayan culture I saw that San Juan was a big thing in June and was hoping to take part in its festivities. When I asked Guillermo if it coincided with our travel dates he said that we might be able to catch some sights. In the end, God delivered more than just a "some sights"-- He delivered a bunch of San Juan festivities!! Ha ha. That's just like our God. ;)

Anyways! I wanted to share about The Girls. They. Are. Amazing.

The first night we arrived, they came around and hugged all of us. Some girls sat me down and braided my hair and basically mothered me. It was so cute.

The more I get to know these girls and their pasts, I went from standing in awe at God's grace to kneeling face down in amazement at His work in their lives.

My Spanish is still no bueno, but I think my French helped me pick up on enough where I can speak (very very very) broken sentences to the girls. By God's grace they understand (most) of what I say and we can have short conversations. I was able to find out how long some of the girls have been here, what brought them here and whether they believe that Jesus is in their heart helping them heal.

I praise God for all that He has done and is doing and I pray that He continues to heal them. I've been picking up and feeling the pain that they hold onto, and my heart literally aches. And I guess I didn't take the time to feel how much it was breaking until recently, when I realized that there was no longer a heavy weight, but just a very broken heart inside of me.

These are young girls. Precious daughters of God. No one should have to had gone through what they've gone through or deal with the aftermath.

But, I believe and I have faith in the beauty of the broken. The redeeming love of God and the wonderful grace of Jesus that can heal all wounds in His time.

I am so grateful that God gave me this opportunity to come here and fall in love with these girls. I do wish that I could speak in better Spanish and have deeper talks with them about their hopes and dreams and fears and nightmares, but I feel the peace of God in my heart. Telling me that my hugs and kisses, my silly dancing and laughing is more than enough to love them with His love. And I praise Him for that.

Today I got a chance to pray with one of the girls who God has placed in my heart. In my broken Spanish I said that we should pray, and I said sorry that I would be praying in English. And she said "And I'm sorry my prayer will be in Spanish." We laughed about it and we agreed that since God understands all languages we would be covered. But it was such a blessing. A lot of times there were no words, just tears and smiles and hugs.

Still my heart is heavy.

It was pretty timely (and cool)-- today's devotional included some of my go-to Bible passage, Philippians 4:4-7

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I was able to give my anxieties and my broken heart to God (and a lot of tears) to the Lord. I still feel sad about what has happened to these girls, but there is also a hope in Christ that keeps me from despairing.

At any rate, I'm really grateful to my teammates who finished up an activity with the girls while I was able to go and have some quiet time.

I'll be following up with a post on last night's San Juan Festival. This was more of a post to let you know how truly amazing our God is and how super duper awesome these girls are.