Second Trip September, 2009 Day 4

This morning after breakfast, we gave each of the girls their spanish Bibles that each of us had bought for them with their names embossed on the front. They were very touched. We had our morning devotion and I read aloud to them Ephesians 2 in spanish, with a little help from the girls on the hard words 🙂 and they read along in their new Bibles. I also told them how the love of God in Jesus had come into our hearts because of what God did in Ephesians 2 and that love has overflowed out of our hearts onto them and that God loves them more than we possibly could. At the end Lida offered to lead us in prayer and she prayed a very sweet prayer thanking God for us and for the blessing that we are to their soul and how we have made God’s love more real to them. Today was a much more relaxed and slow paced day and we really enjoyed it. This morning we took the girls to Exito, which is the Colombian version of Walmart. Each girl was able to pick out a pair of shoes, pants, a shirt, and a jacket. Rebekah, Sandra, Antonio, Adela (our driver), Allen, David, and I helped them pick out and try on several things until each girl was outfitted just right. It was so fun to watch their excitement. We left there and went to a mall with a huge bowling alley and enjoyed bowling with the girls. There were more laughs and cheers and shouts of joy than can be put into words. It was a wonderful thing. We left there and went up the mountain for dinner at a very nice restaurant that overlooks Bogota. The girls really revived after a good meal and the ride home was filled with singing and lots of teasing and joking. We sat around the hotel tonight and downloaded and looked at pictures and relived the day and laughed some more. The girls have thanked us so many times and told us so many times how much they love us that they have learned it in English and now tell us in English every time. We can’t give them everything we want to give them right now (a home and a family) but they know for sure that we love them and I believe that we have given them hope that there is more to the world and to life than what they have known thus far and hope is a powerful thing. We will continue to work on the home and family 🙂

Love and Prayers,