Yesterday afternoon I set out walking through the dirt roads of Candelaria with Rosa, Coni, and Allegra and Ryan from AIM's Passport team that has been working with us the last few weeks. We were going out in the village to visit families and pray with people. I hadn't intended to go, but they needed a translator so I went...

    Our last stop of the afternoon was to visit Ingracia, one of the sweet widows from our church (She is pictured

right in front of her home). As we approached the house, I saw that there were several children running around the yard. Ingracia just looked tired. As we were talking with her, I discovered that her daughter had recently abandoned her six young children leaving them in Ingracia's care. She had been the sole caregiver for these children for nearly seven months. She is exhausted and unsure how to provide her grandchildren with all that they need. Ingracia's daughter is still living in Candelaria only a few blocks away from her children and yet she barely even sees them. My heart just broke for these precious little ones!

    Then Ingracia tells us that Julissa, the oldest daughter, was very ill. She had pain in her stomach and was running a super high fever. They had an appointment to see the doctor the following day, but she was in great pain at the moment. Her body was radiating heat. Julissa was just lying on the bed enveloped in the heat of their tiny tin home.

    I climbed on to the bed beside Julissa and just began talking with her. Then I asked her if we

could pray for her. Ryan, Allegra, and I placed our hands on her and began to pray for healing (praying healing over Julissa- pictured left). We cried out to the Lord on her behalf. As we were praying, I saw Julissa start to sweat profusely. Then I felt her fever drop. The Lord touched her. He answered our prayers. He broke her fever. I told Julissa that the Lord was healing her. A huge smile spread across her face and told me that she knew that the Lord had taken away her fever.

    It is miraculous and beautiful to see the Lord work in this way! I love to see the outpouring of His Spirit! I love to glimpse His glory through healings and miracles, but at the same this afternoon sitting in this family's small home my heart was breaking. And I didn't want the miraculous to blind my eyes from seeing the heartbreaking side of this story.

    I thought about precious Julissa lying in bed sick and without her mom. I am 28 years old. I'm a grown woman and hve been living apart from my family for a decade now. And yet, when I'm sick, I still want my momma. I also know, without a shadow of a doubt, that if I needed her she would be on the next flight to Nicaragua (in fact she offered to fly here if I needed her the last time I was sick). And here is a child whose mom is only a few blocks away and yet she's chosen to be absent from her daughter's life. It's a story that is all too common. My heart ached for this beautiful girl. I longed to wrap my arms around her and tell her that she is loved.

    The Lord was using this time to show me why I need to move forward in my dreams for a children's home. It seems to me that

most people who end up caring for children overseas do so because there were specific children who needed someone to take care of them and so, for the sake of that specific child, they jumped into parenting. My situation is different. The Lord placed this dream in my heart almost five years ago. I'm not doing it for any specific child. I'm doing it because the Lord loves His children and He has placed in my heart a desire to mother children who don't have family.

   Sometimes, because this dream isn't for a specific child, I forget the urgency of it. It often times gets set on the back burner and overlooked in the seeming importance of daily ministry tasks.

    However, as I looked into the eyes of these precious children who have been abandoned into the care of an elderly grandma who is really struggling to take care of them, I could see clearly. Even though I don't yet know the names of the children that the Lord will bring to me, it is still an urgent need. These children are already out there. They are in need of the Lord's love. They are in need of family. The time is now. I need to move forward into this dream.