Third Trip January, 2010 Day 8

Monday was our last day in Bogota. Two things have really blessed me as a Godfather on this trip. First, Ginary has taken close to fifteen hundred pictures with my camera this week and all but about ten were worth keeping! She really has an eye. In the orphanage she designs and makes clothes and the social workers say that she has a gift for it. She is totally illiterate and yet very intelligent, sweet, and always joyful. My wife and I look forward to helping her overcome the academic challenges. Second, Heidy brought us a large folder this morning stuffed with gifts that she had made for us. She is, by the way, an incredible sketch artist and she gave us four, four foot by four foot sketches that she has done and they were stunning. I can’t imagine the hours that she put into them. There were also some little notes and letters to the girls and such that were just precious. We took the girls up to Mansarrate which is a beautiful church on a mountaintop overlooking Bogota. We enjoyed riding the cable car up there and doing some souvenir shopping. Then we went over to Amparo De Ninas for lunch. The girls were once again very excited to see us and we thoroughly enjoyed visiting with them for several hours. I was able to meet with the officials there and get a very encouraging update on the process for my two girls. I, for the first time in this whole ordeal with them, am beginning to feel that I can allow myself to hope that we will bring them home someday soon. We gathered the children together and distributed their gifts. Each girl received her red bag with a pair of sunglasses, tennis shoes, Spanish New Testament, and a doll. They were so excited. One little girl was weeping profusely and when David asked her what was wrong she told him that she was from a very poor family and that she had not been at the orphanage very long and that this was the first gift she had ever received in her life. We finally came to the hardest part and that was leaving for the last time this trip. It goes without saying that it ripped my heart out to hug and kiss my girls goodbye and then drive out of those iron gates knowing that I won’t see their beautiful smiles or hear their sing-song laughter or hold their little brown hands again for several months. We were all crying when we left and like me, I heard many a team member promise themselves that they would be coming back here soon to visit “their” girls. None of us can explain what happens in our hearts when we are with these dear children but I think Chris Dinkler said it the best that I have ever heard when he said, “The next time someone tells me they want to see Jesus I’m going to tell them, ‘I can give you the street address where He lives…’” We have truly been among the “least of these” the last eight days and like the old song says, “turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”