Oh my goodness! I never thought this would happen, but basically, I've been practicing regular blog-neglect. Shaaame on me! But, in my defense, normally when I get on to blog I also spend hours on facebook/myspace/twitter/youtube and I'm trying to sort of cut down on all of that. And I'm proud to share that I have quite a bit!
So, this week is spring break! And I'm so glad. I neeeeded a break. School was weighing down on me, mega. So, we got out of school thursday, and I went to chillin at the church. This past wednesday night I watched The Passion of the Christ with my congregation and so we had a special chillin to talk about it. It went well. That movie always breaks my heart and I notice new stuff about it each time. But then, after chillin I went directly into the church parking lot to leave on a mission trip. We took our little team of 5 families to a Children's Home in Pleasant Plain, Ohio. And it was good! It was a great getaway for my mom and I and it was a great trip to grow closer to some good people from our church. I got to spend a lot of time with my girlfriend Britni who's been in my small group all year now but we've never really gotten close, so that was way cool. Throughout the trip, the guys cut down trees and cleared away brush to help make room for apartments the home was wanting to build as a transitional place for the kids of the home - and I say kids, but really the ages are more from 8-18, most of them high school. Anyways, most of the men cleared trees, but as for us women folk, we cleeeeaned! We cleaned bathrooms, kitchens, pavilions, cabins, and more! And we prepared food for the men folk, of course. Also, for one day we helped out with a basketball tournament the local church was putting on as a fundraiser.
And so, the trip was good. It was wholesome. And fun! But, the whole time I just kind of felt like we weren't really making much of a difference, and I kept telling my momma that. And she was like, "Danielle, you've been on some amazing trips, and so I'm sure this one doesn't feel that mindblowing for you. So, for this trip, I think the focus is more on relationships and not on labor. And I don't think you'll know what you've learned and why you came til afterwards." And so I was like, okay, makes sense. And then, the last couple of days, we got to hang out with the kids, and now that I'm home I know that spending time with them was why I went on the trip. It was SO AWKWARD. Don't get me wrong, I had no idea what I was doing. I would just talk to them - like an idiot. "What's your name?" "I'm Danielle" "What's your favorite color" "Cool. How old are you?" Hah, yep. That's pretty much how it went. But man, some of the stuff they told me. Some of the stuff I heard...
My mom told me this one story that she heard from one of the house parents. She told me about this girl I met. She was adopted from Russia when she was a baby, and she experienced a lot of neglect in the orphanage there. But, her mom was reverse adopting her. She supposidly pulled all sorts of stunts on her mom. And her latest stunt caused her mom to put her in the home. She would always do things that caused her mom to loose her job. And so for her mom's latest job, she waited til the last day her mom was uninsurable with the job and took a whole bottle of tylenol. So, the job didn't insure the hospital bills. And in the home the previous night she took a butcher knife and threatened to kill the house parent's two biological daughters. She didn't. But she was put on "Level One" - and I don't even know what that means. But, I talked to her. A lot. Her favorite color was pink. She was pretty. She told me she wasn't allowed to wear makeup because she was on level one. She was a junior, like me. She hated math, like me. She wanted to leave the home before she was 18 - that was her biggest desire.
And on the last day, I was talking to this boy. "How old are you?" "15" "You look older than 15, you look like...16" "Haha" "What grade are you in?" "I'm not in a grade. I don't go to school." "Oh." "I just got here two nights ago. I've been in jail for the past three years." "Oh....*long pause* school sucks." "Does it?" "Yeah, it's mostly boring." "Oh"
I met so many kids, and I didn't hear their stories, I didn't even hear the boy and girl I talked about's whole story. Their parents must've royally screwed them over though. If I was a mother who adopted a crazed daughter who pulled crazy stunts all the time would I be heartless enough to reverse adopt her? Those kids - who aren't even kids, those people my age - don't know love. Maybe one is a Christian. They're forced to go to church because they have to go wherever their house parents go. And so they don't even know the love of God. I was in this small group, just with the high school girls from the homes and Britni. A lady from the trip, Suzanne, led it. She said something about how she doesn't know why God allows babies to be born into homes with crappy parents and the girl sitting next to me, she whispered under her breath "because He hates me". That just made me want to cry. God calls us to love these people. God calls us to seek these broken people out. And now that I'm home, I'm thinking about if anyone in my school has a mom or a dad that doesn't love them, a parent that tells them that no one loves them, a dead parent, an abusive parent. That's such an intense place to be. And it makes my heart break. I am a stupid, shallow human to not even give people like these a second thought throughout my day. There are peopel so much worse off than I am. And I'm so glad God opened my eyes to them. Even though I might feel incapable of helping them, even though it's awkward, even though I don't know how, even though it breaks my heart, I know that one of my gifts is helping people. Reaching out. And I won't let anyone look down on me because I'm young. I'm called to love.
I'm called to love.
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