It is Thursday night. I am standing in front of 60 teenagers crammed into a room. These are kids from the street, and you can tangibly feel the energy as I grasp the microphone. But something happens as I read my talk in broken Spanish - the room is utterly silent.

 

Vida Joven (Young Life) Ministries

 

Margarita was released and lives near a church on the corner of Santa Lucia- that much we know. We have been searching for her for 2 hours now, and the whole neigborhood is asking around when we meet a friend from women's group, Fabi, who suddenly takes off excitedly- she knows where to find Margarita!! We talk for a while that day, we have been visiting her for 3 months in the hospital, and make plans to come back and cook home-made tortillas and pollo tapado.

 

 

 

I am sitting with Roxanna after Bible study. She begins to cry. She tells me about her problems with her husband, how they started praying together for God to reconcile their relationship. Work is slow. She is young, but has children to provide for. But she has her mirror from women's group, the mirrors we decorated with scripture and truth, and she looks in it every day and remembers God's love for her.

 

 

I am upset and want to be alone, but Jennifer (a young woman whom I have become close to and who washes some of the team's clothes ) needs someone to walk with her to drop off clothing at her house. I start to tear up, and when she asks me the first time what is wrong I try to pretend that everything is fine. When we say goodbye, she asks again, and this time I tell. She listens and tells me that it's ok, she has felt that way lots of times. This is what friends are for, she says, to share our hearts with one another. She gives me a hug. God has everything under control, she says.

 

 

The sand is sifting through my toes. I am supposed to be journaling my time here, and as I look out over the Pacific, I think about these moments. And I think about how much He loves me. Not with my kind of love, but with His love - the love that chases me no matter how long it takes, the love that perserveres, the love that flows without condition. One day I want to love with that kind of love.