7th Trip To Bogota, January 2011 Day 1

My precious daughters and I are in Bogota with 30 Orphan Hope International team members! Our largest and most ambitious trip to date. God has given us a great group and I am already enjoying the way they are coming together to love and serve the orphans of Colombia.

We met for breakfast this morning at 7:30 a.m. and as we were wrapping up I gave our morning devotion. This week I wanted to focus on the theme of doing ministry as Jesus did. Asking Him to come and live His life through us. Minister to these children through us. I will address 6 P’s of Jesus ministry this week and this morning we started with Presence. The first gift that God gave us to demonstrate His love was His presence on earth in the person of His Son Jesus. Emmanuel… God with us. He could have written us a message in the sky but He chose to come to where we were and for 33 years to become one of us and live with us… John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He gave us the gift of His presence and today we asked Him to use us to give these lonely, love starved children the gift of His presence in us. James 1:27 says, “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress…” Another blessing today is that we will also get to receive the gift of His presence in them. Jesus said in Matthew 25 that when we serve them we are serving Him. Mother Teresa called these children Jesus in disguise and so they are.

Today we visited Santa Maria Orphanage in Madrid just outside of Bogota. It is home to 135 girls ages 8 to 18. We had a wonderful day seeing old friends and meeting many new ones. There were presentations by the girls, songs, drama productions, and such. We enjoyed visiting and sharing lunch with them. We toured their “house” and they assured us that it was our house as well and that they wanted us to be at home. As the afternoon was drawing to a close our dear sister and advisory board member, Dona Reyes, in Spanish with her husband Nep translating in English, gave her testimony of her life in Venezuela as a girl and the hurt and pain that she had suffered and the bitterness and revenge that had hardened her heart and then how meeting Jesus Christ and receiving His grace and love had healed her wounds and changed her heart. There were tears and sighs from many of the orphan girls. When Dona invited them to trust in Christ and to recieve by faith His love and grace many, many girls responded and prayed with Dona and Nep calling on the Lord to change their hearts and heal their hurts. Rebekah, Beverly, Brooke, Jana and I sang, Here I Am To Worship in English and then Jesus Messiah in Spanish for the girls and then it was time to go. We will return there tomorrow and share more of Jesus love for these precious children.