Bed Elves

Today was a great life moment.

Today I think we were all dragging a little from the intensive construction week we've had. However, when we arrived at the job site (the orphanage) we were greeted by some very eager faces who quickly ushered us up to the third floor of one of the dorms.

Artur, Vasile, Dima and Ivan threw open door after door to show us they had arrived more than two hours before us in order to finish assembling and setting up the remaining beds we had on our plate for today. It was probably a solid morning's work that was accomplished by four very eager and proud boys. I wish so much I could have bottled that moment to share with you. Perhaps you can catch a glimpse of it in this picture.

I'm not sure any words I can share could completely express the abundance of delight in my heart or the happiness in seeing prayers answered or in seeing God's calling affirmed in my life and in the lives of those around me. Our team has been just incredible. Everyone has worked so hard and it has made my heart so happy so watch each of them loving shadows of young boys who have now turned into determined young men.

Watching them today I couldn't help but think of the thin line between good and bad. So much pain and hurt has colored their lives. Our boys have been invested in for such a short amount of time this week and it's amazing to watch their pride, see their joy and hear their laughter. The tough exteriors are so much more fragile than anymore can ever realize. Inside they are all eight years old wanting to know why their parents left, asking who will love them and wondering where they will find shelter and food.

Every single day at least one of these boys has come to me with these concerns. I have spent a lot of time listening to their hearts, holding their hands, hearing and feeling their fear. These boys are now all graduates of the orphanage: young boys who have finished the ninth grade and who must find a place to live and a job to support themselves.

Everyday I caress a hand that is tightly squeezing my own while I listen to their hopes and their dreams and their fears. The conversations are all the same...who will love them, who will they trust, who will help them...how do they survive. Yet, as I pause to pray with each of them I

never seem to know the words and just begin with a quiet cry to God to lead my heart and my mouth.

Tomorrow evening we will be taking the boys to dinner to celebrate our hard work and to hear from their hearts as they share about their lives, their weeks and their hopes for their futures. I suspect this will be a powerful time as God has touched each of us by their spirits and we are now deeply invested.

Please pray for these boys. Pray for these team members who are now their voices. And, pray for the way God might lead you to become involved in the responsibility we have to secure a transitional living house for 10 of these young men to live in beginning September 1. As we have seen this week...small things truly make differences to the small.

Sleep Sweetly,
Jen