(un)Commonly Discarded.

Creamy macaroni & cheese. Messy sloppy joes. Homemade cinnamon rolls. And always, veggies and fruit thrown in for good measure. Am I on a mission trip? You’d better believe it.

Ministry tools - of a different sort.

You Bring – Love (1st in a series)

This is the story of a little man and his sweet corazoncito – and the power of returning.

Once upon a time in the year 2008, a love story was born. In the corner of a sun-drenched courtyard at a little nursing home called Cabacitas de Algodon (Little House of CottonTops), a little man set up his small “studio.” He carefully drew a house, his feeble hands holding well-worn colored pencils. This wasn’t any house, mind you. It was an elevation – the type of sketch used by homebuilders. Meticulous and mindful, he focused on his work, oblivious to the team of North Americans who had walked through the gates with guitars and new shoes. His art was his passion.

And it was someone else’s passion too.

You Bring – Promise.

Today, I wept over French Toast.

Tostadas at Pollo Campero.

To be perfectly honest, my tears had nothing to do with breakfast. But when caught crying at Pollo Campero this morning, the quality of the French Toast seemed as good an excuse as any.

You Bring – Family

Sometimes, girls just want to be girls. They want to listen to music and dance. They want to giggle about boys. They want to bake cookies, make beautiful things with their hands, braid hair, and talk about what life will look like when they grow up.

Today, in a transition home tucked away on a quiet cobblestone street in Antigua, girls got to be girls.

Evita's girls, posing for special pictures on their "girls day."

Theme.

There’s a moment before every journey to care for the discarded where the sweet whisper of the Lord says “here’s your theme.” Last time for me, it was “Little is much.” For Courtney, it was “Jesus first.”

This time, for me, the whisper came in the words of a song:

Whispers.

Tomorrow night, we’ll be there again. Guatemala. Tonight, my heart is filled with a million whispered prayers. I pray for each member of our precious team – Shea, Amy, Kylie, Kelly, Richard, Ashley, Emily, Tricia, Janice, Teresa, and my fellow Wordpainter, Courtney. I pray for our dear Orphan Outreach companion Gloria and the team of translators she has hand-picked. I pray for Josue, our guardian angel bus driver. I pray for the 272 young women awaiting our arrival at Hogar Solidario, the seven girls ready to learn to decorate cakes and bake bread at Evita’s House, and the 49 sweet children at Cerecaif who remind everyone they meet of the awesome redeeming love of a mighty God. I pray for hope to shine brightly. I pray for miracles, great and small. I pray for joy like rain and power like the gravity-defying flowers that spring forth from the cliffs in Xela. And I pray for communion as rich as the time spent holding the hand of an abuelita at Cabacitas de Algodon.

I pray for beauty to be found in the margins, each and every day. Lord, let me not miss a moment.

~Ronne