God Still Speaks

As I awoke suddenly at 4:30 am, I heard a whisper. Not a loud, majestic voice...a whisper. It was so clear in my ears that I looked over at Mike to see if he had said something. Sound asleep. It whispered again. Something about the kids. I'm tired, can't I do it when I wake up? I answered back. Get up, it kept saying. You're their voice. Get up and let them know. I knew just what this voice wanted me to do and I knew just who the voice was that was talking to me. I got up, compiled my list and just typed.

You see, Friday morning, I went back to the Hole for the first time since April. I assumed it would be like every other trip. I've gone at least a hundred times. I had my trusty little Nikon camera in my hand, just as I had every trip before. But somehow it felt different. I began taking pictures. Pictures of the landscapes, the trash, men and women....children. There was something about the kids. My spanish is far from perfect, but hugs are all they ask for. They all keep asking me about my baby. Where's my baby? They remember me. They remember me. In four months of being away they haven't forgotten me! But had I forgotten them? How many times in four months had I thought about them? Remembering their smiles and their laughs and their ever-so-tight hugs. Not enough, I hadn't thought of them enough, I said to myself. As we began to leave a little boy kept holding my hand. They always follow the groups up, they always hold our hands. But this time for me, was different. I began to think if when he returned home, would his mom give him a hug? Would she embrace him because he had been away so long? As our van drove away the little boy would turn around and wave at me every 5 or 10 steps. He kept waving until we were out of sight. And then...something happened that hadn't happened in a very long time. In TOO long of a time. I began to cry. I was thankful for my sunglasses. Up until that last little wave I had been cold...almost numb to what I see everyday. Just one more dirty, malnourished kid. I see them all the time. But it finally pierced me. I'm their voice.

And not just me but the people that work here, the people that visit here. The kids can't speak for themselves. We're their voices. So as I sat that morning and began to type at my computer, I put every name on that e-mail that I had been afraid to ask before. Telling them of this opportunity they have to seize and they can do something that has an eternal reward. These kids don't need much but they need something. Something that everyone I knew and everyone I've come in contact with can provide. The whisper in the dark of the morning knew I wanted to sleep but it also knew that I had been changed and just didn't know what to do with it. It's funny, all along I thought he would have spoken louder.

(below are just a couple of images I've taken over the past year that I've been with G.O.-I worked on them today and had my passions renewed to try and capture this ministry and to try and be the voice so many of them don't have)