Sobering News

I wanted to ask you to be praying for Casa de Amor ["House of Love" in Spanish] in Bolivia. I know some of you have heard me mention this orphanage because it is just so dear to my heart. My friend Jennifer Thompson has worked so hard to give these homeless children of Bolivia a truly safe home, and God has blessed her efforts in so many ways. Casa de Amor now has three sites, with about 40 children total. While I have never actually been able to go there to work with them, I have loved Casa de Amor since it was first started about 4 years ago; in fact, I have been praying for a long time that God would let me go to Bolivia and work with them. Hopefully I will be able to do that once I graduate from nursing school. I know that they have a great need for people with medical knowledge to help care for all the children they have with medical issues.

Right before Christmas, Casa de Amor accepted a new baby to the Baby Home, not knowing that he had chicken pox. Unfortunately, chicken pox is extremely contagious and the children have all gradually become sick with it, with each one becoming sicker than the previous one. Friday morning, one of the youngest babies in the Baby Home, 4 month old Gabriela, passed away due to complications from the chicken pox virus. Her twin brother is still fighting chicken pox pneumonia, another complication of the chicken pox. I am crying as I write this. I have loved looking at Gabriela's pictures and seeing her with her brother and the other babies of Casa de Amor. I wish I could have known her. Please pray for all these children and also for their caregivers. I know that they are all grieving, but they are still also trying to make sure that they don't lose any more of these precious children. Please also pray for all of the children of Bolivia, thousands of whom still live on the streets.

"Life, I Love Thee"

The past few months, I've been reading The Journals of Jim Elliot. I love this book. Reading of Jim Elliot's struggles and victories have helped me so much in my own Christian walk. Yesterday as I was reading, I ran across a journal entry that was very convicting to me. I don't like life a lot of times. I really struggle with finding joy in a lot of it. I want to "live to the hilt every situation", as he says elsewhere, but I don't find myself doing that often enough.

On December 24, 1951 (only 4 years before his death), Jim Elliot wrote:

"Only I know that my own life is full. It is time to die, for I have had all a young man can have--at least all this young man can have. If there were no further issue from my training, it would be well--the training has been good and to the glory of God. I am ready to meet Jesus. Failure means nothing now, only that it taught me life. Success is meaningless, only that it gave me further experience for using the great gift of God--Life. And Life, I love thee, not because thou art long, or because thou hast done great things for me, but simply because I have thee from God. This writing is part of thee, and I am glad to write; not that there is any purpose in it for others--it is simply part of Life, and Life I have come to love."

Oh God, I pray that I will be able to enjoy life so fully someday!!