God's goodness

Just when I am fighting a mental and spiritual battle from within. Questioning. Doubting. God reveals himself in small ways. He speaks to me in a gentle whisper.

This past week and a half God has opened up doors for me to know more of who He is. As I reflect back, I am just in awe and awed-inspired from my Heavenly Father. I was able to help plant strawberry plants for our aquaponics system at our school in Palo Blanco with the Allen Family. It's been a while since I have actually planted anything probably since I moved away from Rimersburg. I have never had a green thumb. Actually, I killed more things unless it was planted outside for God to take care of it for me 😁. There is just something therapeutic about planting, getting your hands dirty in the dirt...not sure what it is...just therapeutic.

I was able to be a part of the Princess Conference that Tammy Griffin, planned, organized, and invited many girls from the ages of 10-13 years old to attend. It was amazing to see how God had 200+ girls attend the conference along with some moms. They heard the gospel message and that their King (God) is calling them to be his beloved daughters (princesses). They heard about the importance of keeping themselves pure for their future spouse. The girls heard a panel of three men and their responses to various questions concerning dress, girls pursing boys, what they look for in a girl and what advice they would give these girls. We had times of small groups. I had a group of 11 girls from three different schools, our Palo Blanco school, and two of the public schools in Jarabacoa. One thing we did in our small groups is to come up with 15 different boundaries to keep ourselves pure. We then were given an egg (our purity--fragile), 15 straws (our boundaries) and tape. Once everyone finished the tallest girl from each group went up on the stage and with her arm raised above her head, dropped the egg onto the floor. It was to see if the boundaries (straws) we had in place would guard our purity (fragile egg). I was very proud of my group as our egg was one of four out of eleven groups that did not break. We finished the conference with getting their hair styled, nails painted and dinner. It was an amazing conference. It rained all day which was a little concerning that the girls may not come because many times they don't go to school when it is raining. But God stopped the rain and the sun came up at the time the girls were to arrive before it started to rain again.

We are coming close to our deadline in getting all of our sponsorship projects done which we have around 1,000 kids in our program. I helped to put the kids' photos on some of the projects. Helping the kids to complete their progress report into English. A side note, I was talking with one of my friends who grew up in our children's home in Lima, Peru and he told me this week that he was helping the kids at the home with their sponsorship projects. It was very interesting hearing him share what some of the kids were saying and asking him because many were the same questions he would ask me when he was doing his projects for his sponsors. It's a big task for these kids to do but it is awesome to see them celebrate in so many ways when they finally finish. Some do a jig. Some raise their arms up saying "I'm finished!" Some give High 5's or pounds.

Last weekend, Velvet Ashes had an online retreat for missionary women. There were 1,000+ women serving in 93 countries who participated in the retreat. Four of us here participated in the retreat. We studied 1 Kings 18-19. Even though I did the retreat in a very busy weekend, God carved out some free time for me to sit, read His word, meditate on it and reflect. I heard some amazing testimonies of women serving overseas. I listened to some amazing music that they provided us. I even did the Spiritual Stretching video that they had. So many things spoke to me but just the details of how God provided for Elijah and in a gentle way touching him spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally, and relationally. Still gleaning from these passages of Scripture. Very thankful for the staff of Velvet Ashes and all they do for women serving globally.