fully seen. fully known.

many of you have prayed me here, and now that i’ve spent three days in this new place, i can’t wait to share some glimpses of what life looks like so far. i’ll be honest with you. the first day was really what felt like one of the most difficult things i would ever have to do. i was arriving to a familiar place yet this time i wasn’t with a team, i was by myself. i knew somewhat of landmarks and what my space was going to look like but it was still challenging to move into somewhere that didn’t feel like home. the first night was full of ups and downs, mostly downs. but in those downs is where i saw Gods full faithfulness. let me tell you a story. i’ll keep this quick (if you know me you know i have a habit of making every story twice as long as it needs to be). my second day in Nicaragua i woke up feeling good but not great, i knew that it might be a long day ahead of me but i had a friend by my side with every step. and His name is Jesus. i had been praying more than i ever have in my life, it has been my LIFE LINE these past few days. i was starting to get good at praying often in the USA, but when prayer is all you have it is mind boggling how much a difference it makes. more on that later. on my second day we went to have lunch with some people from the school, during this lunch everyone at the table was speaking spanish. so i would like you to humor me by taking a moment to picture an a girl (this is me if you didn’t catch the memo) sitting at a table with people she does not know, and cannot communicate with, and then sits there for an hour. it probably really just looked like i was there for the food. nonetheless, i was clueless. after this i headed back to where i was staying, i then had over 6 hours of free time to myself. in my head this seemed nice, but i knew i would get lonely very quickly. after about an hour of reading my bible and journaling, i was bored. and right when my thoughts started to overwhelm me someone came walking right into my apartment, this someone was a little girl that was the ripe age of 7. she walked in with a confidence i’d never seen, with a joyful voice that said “hola” and came over to give me a hug. she sat down next to me and started talking to me in spanish and i just sat there absolutely baffled. there was no doubt in my mind that this was not a sign of Gods love. and here is my first conclusion from this encounter: i am fully seen. the God that i trusted to pave a path for me to be able to get here saw how broken my heart was being away from everything i knew and sent me a comfort. not only was i fully seen, i was fully KNOWN. God knew exactly what would cheer me up. that thing being a little girl named Nashley. soon enough me and Nashley went out to the trampoline outside of where i was staying, after this we went to go play with her toys. when i say we went to go play with her toys i mean every toy she owned, which if your wondering was one tote bag worth. she dumped them out in the dirt in front of her home like this was her normal routine and i realized how many kids in america have more toys than they can even begin to count. and this little girl was content with making make-believe food with her mini kitchen set in the dirt. i looked over to see her mom rocking a newborn baby to sleep in a hammock, no automatic swinger, no sound machine. just a baby being held to sleep with a bunch of chickens as its white noise. me and nashley played in the dirt for a good hour and a half, while she told me all about who knows what in spanish and i sat there nodding my head and saying “Si” every five minutes or so. after this we went back to the trampoline and played goalie with a severely deflated ball. she insisted on coming back up to my place with me so we headed back. we sat in the silence for a little bit, both of us so sweaty from not just the heat but the workout that being goalie was. i went and grabbed my nail polish and painted her nails. having painted nails is a huge thing down here because it’s fairly new to them. i let her take a nail polish home with her because she seemed to love it so much. so 3 hours was passed by in the best way i could have imagined. and none of it was by my own doing. God knew i needed a friend. so there’s my first story for you. maybe that was one of your prayers coming true and i hope it was. i’m so grateful for all of your prayers more than i can express, so if you’re reading this, know that im praying for you too. i’ll be back with more updates in a few days :)

a little bit of His grace on the first night.

this moment was heaven sent, i will never get over it.

all the toys me and nashley played with, no toy was left untouched to say the least.