Well, this is it. This has been a life changing two months, and I hope this blog has in some small way communicated that to you all and that you, too, were changed; filled with compassion for the children and a renewed desire to come alongside them and bring healing and peace in the name of Jesus. I promise you from experience that you will not regret it.
I want to end this blog with a Franciscan benediction that has impacted me greatly. Read it well, please. It is filled with truth and life.
---------------------------
May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths,
And superficial relationships
So that you may live deep
Within your heart.
May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression,
And exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice,
Freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain,
Rejection, hunger, and war,
So that you may reach out your
Hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with
Enough foolishness
To believe that you can make
A difference in the world,
So that you can do what others
Claim cannot be done,
And bring justice and kindness to
All our children and the poor.
-------------------------
All praise and glory to the God of the universe who holds these beloved children in His hands. May we truly be servants of His will and bring His peace and love and healing to all. What an incredible joy it is to serve our God!
Please remember the children, all the children, in your prayers. Please.
May God be glorified....
Amén
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Thank you, thank You.
Hey guys! We all just wanted to take a little time to say thanks...so here we go!
Morgan- Thank you to everyone who has gone on this journey with us in prayer and support! Knowing that we had people across the country praying for us was such a comfort throughout this experience. Thank you especially for your prayers when we got the fever- it made it a lot easier know we had so many prayers from home. Love you all! Morgan
Ashley- There is no way we could have gotten through the last two months with out the people who continually prayed for us. Knowing that we only had to press “publish” on the blog with a prayer request and people all over the country would start praying for us was such an amazing comfort. Thank you especially for praying for our health, for continual strength, and for our goodbyes. We love you all! Ashley
Alison- Thankkkkkkk youuuuuuu to my amazing supporters, ROH staff, Casa Bernabe staff, the kids, friends and family. You have all blessed us so much with your love, prayers and friendships. We could not have done this without your help. The Lord blessed us with your love and support and I cannot tell you how much that means to me. He is doing beautiful things at Casa Bernabe and I am so blessed and thankful to have been a part of it. Thank you, thank you, thank you for making that possible. I love you all and will continue to pray for you.
Xoxox Alison
Andrea- Wow, what a summer! I have been so blessed by my time at Casa Bernabe, and will never forget the people and experiences that I have encountered. Muchas Gracias to you all for praying and supporting us. It was such a blessing to know that ya’ll were keeping up with us and praying for us. So thank you so very very much! And please Continue praying for Casa Bernabe and the staff, kids, and missionaries there, and that God continues to bless the ministry there. I guess this is the end of this Guatemala Team 2010 Blog post. Soooo, thank you again for everything, and God Bless you all! With much love in Christ!
Andrea
Bethany- Thank you so much to everyone who supported me in going on this trip. Because of you, I had one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and God did so many amazing things! Thank you for being a part of that, and I cannot wait to share with you all about my summer. Thanks for all the prayers and encouragement. They were very much needed and because of you, the kingdom of God has advanced; these kids’ lives have been forever changed. You are all so wonderful and may God bless you for everything! Thank you again!
Bethany
Lauren Haefliger- I am so appreciative for all of your thoughts and prayers that have supported us on this trip. It has been a wonderful chance to see God working at Casa Bernabe and in each of our lives. Thanks again for your wonderful support and desire to keep updated on our lives down there—it meant a lot to know that all 44 of you were interested in our work at Casa Bernabe. With much love!!!
Lauren Haefliger
Sara- Thank you to everyone for your prayers and support while we were in Guatemala at Casa Bernabe. We appreciated it so much. I had an amazing trip. Much love and gratitude to all the staff and children at Casa Bernabe who changed all of us spiritually, mentally, and emotionally this summer for eight weeks. Continue to keep this orphanage in your prayers! Also thanks for keeping up with the ROH Guatemala 2010 blog:) God Bless everyone of you!
Sara
Emily- Thank you so much to everyone who followed our blog and prayed for us this summer. Also, thanks so much to the people who supported us financially and made it possible for all of us to go spend time with the children. Thanks to the Casa Bernabé staff for your amazing attitudes, hard work, and willingness to teach us. Thank you for letting us help you, however inadequate our efforts were. ¡Muchas gracias, les queremos un montón, y les vamos a extrañar muchísimo! ¡Hasta noviembre!
Emily
Lauren Harlow- Thank you all for the blessing you have been to us- sharing in our joys, victories, flat out failures, and laughing with us as we laughed at us. Especially a huge thank you to you who have prayed us through our summer! We have been so blessed by you all and whether we are coming home to you or will be calling you, we are excited to talk to our faithful family and friends who have made the trek with us.
Dios te bendiga- Lorena Harlow
Cressia- What a great summer! My heart is full of joy and gratitude for such a priviledge of being at Casa Bernabé with an amazing team. First of all I want to say thank you for my team members’ parents for giving them to Casa Bernabé for the whole summer. Thank you for raising up wonderful people. They reflect to the children the love that you have given them. You are awesome! I also would like to give a huge thank you to each one of you, my white children, for encouraging me to grow and making me comfortable in my weakest time. You are a blessing! I want to thank you Casa Bernabé for receiving us very well and making us part of their family. You are special! I thank you so much ROH for trusting me and giving me the opportunity to grow during this summer. To God, the eternal lovely God, be the glory! I’m Yours!
Cressia
Matt- It’s crazy this is all over. I cannot, we cannot, thank you all enough for your incredible support. Your prayers and encouragement made all the difference and we felt so loved. Thank you Casa Bernabé for putting up with me long enough for me to have the time of my life. You are remarkable people and I pray that you would be blessed in all that you do. Keep loving those kids for us, and thank you for allowing us to borrow them a little bit this summer…they changed our lives and we are so grateful. Thank you ROH, thank you ROH team, you are all wonderful people and ustedes voy a extrañar mucho. And God…ooooh God, I’m so glad I have eternity to thank You for your mind-blowing grace and goodness. I love You.
Gracias por todos,
-Mateo
From the bottom of our now much deeper hearts, thank you all.
-The ROH Team
Morgan- Thank you to everyone who has gone on this journey with us in prayer and support! Knowing that we had people across the country praying for us was such a comfort throughout this experience. Thank you especially for your prayers when we got the fever- it made it a lot easier know we had so many prayers from home. Love you all! Morgan
Ashley- There is no way we could have gotten through the last two months with out the people who continually prayed for us. Knowing that we only had to press “publish” on the blog with a prayer request and people all over the country would start praying for us was such an amazing comfort. Thank you especially for praying for our health, for continual strength, and for our goodbyes. We love you all! Ashley
Alison- Thankkkkkkk youuuuuuu to my amazing supporters, ROH staff, Casa Bernabe staff, the kids, friends and family. You have all blessed us so much with your love, prayers and friendships. We could not have done this without your help. The Lord blessed us with your love and support and I cannot tell you how much that means to me. He is doing beautiful things at Casa Bernabe and I am so blessed and thankful to have been a part of it. Thank you, thank you, thank you for making that possible. I love you all and will continue to pray for you.
Xoxox Alison
Andrea- Wow, what a summer! I have been so blessed by my time at Casa Bernabe, and will never forget the people and experiences that I have encountered. Muchas Gracias to you all for praying and supporting us. It was such a blessing to know that ya’ll were keeping up with us and praying for us. So thank you so very very much! And please Continue praying for Casa Bernabe and the staff, kids, and missionaries there, and that God continues to bless the ministry there. I guess this is the end of this Guatemala Team 2010 Blog post. Soooo, thank you again for everything, and God Bless you all! With much love in Christ!
Andrea
Bethany- Thank you so much to everyone who supported me in going on this trip. Because of you, I had one of the most amazing experiences of my life, and God did so many amazing things! Thank you for being a part of that, and I cannot wait to share with you all about my summer. Thanks for all the prayers and encouragement. They were very much needed and because of you, the kingdom of God has advanced; these kids’ lives have been forever changed. You are all so wonderful and may God bless you for everything! Thank you again!
Bethany
Lauren Haefliger- I am so appreciative for all of your thoughts and prayers that have supported us on this trip. It has been a wonderful chance to see God working at Casa Bernabe and in each of our lives. Thanks again for your wonderful support and desire to keep updated on our lives down there—it meant a lot to know that all 44 of you were interested in our work at Casa Bernabe. With much love!!!
Lauren Haefliger
Sara- Thank you to everyone for your prayers and support while we were in Guatemala at Casa Bernabe. We appreciated it so much. I had an amazing trip. Much love and gratitude to all the staff and children at Casa Bernabe who changed all of us spiritually, mentally, and emotionally this summer for eight weeks. Continue to keep this orphanage in your prayers! Also thanks for keeping up with the ROH Guatemala 2010 blog:) God Bless everyone of you!
Sara
Emily- Thank you so much to everyone who followed our blog and prayed for us this summer. Also, thanks so much to the people who supported us financially and made it possible for all of us to go spend time with the children. Thanks to the Casa Bernabé staff for your amazing attitudes, hard work, and willingness to teach us. Thank you for letting us help you, however inadequate our efforts were. ¡Muchas gracias, les queremos un montón, y les vamos a extrañar muchísimo! ¡Hasta noviembre!
Emily
Lauren Harlow- Thank you all for the blessing you have been to us- sharing in our joys, victories, flat out failures, and laughing with us as we laughed at us. Especially a huge thank you to you who have prayed us through our summer! We have been so blessed by you all and whether we are coming home to you or will be calling you, we are excited to talk to our faithful family and friends who have made the trek with us.
Dios te bendiga- Lorena Harlow
Cressia- What a great summer! My heart is full of joy and gratitude for such a priviledge of being at Casa Bernabé with an amazing team. First of all I want to say thank you for my team members’ parents for giving them to Casa Bernabé for the whole summer. Thank you for raising up wonderful people. They reflect to the children the love that you have given them. You are awesome! I also would like to give a huge thank you to each one of you, my white children, for encouraging me to grow and making me comfortable in my weakest time. You are a blessing! I want to thank you Casa Bernabé for receiving us very well and making us part of their family. You are special! I thank you so much ROH for trusting me and giving me the opportunity to grow during this summer. To God, the eternal lovely God, be the glory! I’m Yours!
Cressia
Matt- It’s crazy this is all over. I cannot, we cannot, thank you all enough for your incredible support. Your prayers and encouragement made all the difference and we felt so loved. Thank you Casa Bernabé for putting up with me long enough for me to have the time of my life. You are remarkable people and I pray that you would be blessed in all that you do. Keep loving those kids for us, and thank you for allowing us to borrow them a little bit this summer…they changed our lives and we are so grateful. Thank you ROH, thank you ROH team, you are all wonderful people and ustedes voy a extrañar mucho. And God…ooooh God, I’m so glad I have eternity to thank You for your mind-blowing grace and goodness. I love You.
Gracias por todos,
-Mateo
From the bottom of our now much deeper hearts, thank you all.
-The ROH Team
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
We're stateside!
This will be quick.
We are all back safe and sound. Customs was quick and painless (seriously, maybe ten minutes), and the only hiccup was Cressia needing to answer some questions in a creepy looking office for a while. It's ok though. She emerged 40 minutes later slathered in red, white and blue and wearing an Uncle Sam hat with a sparkler in it. Welcome to America Cressia! After a rousing chorus of God Bless the USA we all got in vans and headed to the ROH office. It's been wonderful, to say the least, and it's good to see everyone here again.
Thanks for all of your prayers as we travelled!
-Matt
We are all back safe and sound. Customs was quick and painless (seriously, maybe ten minutes), and the only hiccup was Cressia needing to answer some questions in a creepy looking office for a while. It's ok though. She emerged 40 minutes later slathered in red, white and blue and wearing an Uncle Sam hat with a sparkler in it. Welcome to America Cressia! After a rousing chorus of God Bless the USA we all got in vans and headed to the ROH office. It's been wonderful, to say the least, and it's good to see everyone here again.
Thanks for all of your prayers as we travelled!
-Matt
Monday, August 2, 2010
Final Quotes (perhaps)
So I would hate to end our time here on such a bitterly depressed note, so I thought I'd put up our last quotes from Casa Bernabé. We are leaving in 30 minutes and I don't really care because I just said goodbye to my boys as they walked to school. Everyone is packed and we're going to leave, ready or not.
Ashley (handing a computer to Matt)- “Here, Bubba Boo.” Matt- “Thanks…girly….swirly.”
Emily (to Matt while doing dishes)- “Oh stop being so grumpy!” Matt- “What?! I was only staring at this pot thinking how easy it would be to clean it if you covered a squirrel in soap and put it in there and closed the lid!” Others- “What?" “Matt- “Seriously, I’m not mad! I was just thinking about putting woodland creatures in pots, geez.”
Matt- “Apparently I’m allergic to Lauren’s microbes of death.”
Emily (to Matt)- “Matt, be happier!” Matt- “Am I not eating this marshmallow enthusiastically enough for you?!”
Emily- “Okay, act like you love each other in this picture!” Matt gives them all a hug and the photo is taken. Matt- “Ok, can we take another one where I’m not lying with my actions?”
(As we eat a billion marshmallows and chocolate bars) Matt- “Do you know what the third circle of hell is? Gluttony. I’ll meet you there.” Lauren Harlow- “Pound it.”
Matt – “Don’t you know that how I think has nothing to do with what’s happening in reality?!”
Cressia – “Emily, is there a word for wassom in Spanish?” Emily – “Wasabe, wasp, what are you trying to say?” Cressia (singing) – “No, like ‘Our God is a wassom God, he reigns…”
Cressia (over and over, all summer) – “Oh, lots of stars! So many stars!”
Cressia – “Oh! Hips!”
Ashley- “Can you imagine having an identical twin? Having someone who looks just like you running around?” Matt- “It would be good for the world and bad for me. I’d have to split the women and that’s not a part of my game plan.”
Emily – “Sneezing is the most satisfying feeling in the world. Peeing is close, but sneezing is better.”
Andrea – “If you’re not in my head, you wouldn’t understand what I’m thinking.”
Matt – “I’ve never been lightbulb shopping with another man before. It was fun.”
Matt – “Well if I marry one of my random Asian wives, she’ll have a small nose to begin with so it’ll be ok.”
Matt – “Hand me my Special K…if we’re going to talk about babies I need my folic acid!”
Matt to Lauren Harlow – “I’m watching the car wreck that is you right now.”
Lauren Harlow to Matt – “Tell me about your feelings.” Matt – “I haven’t heard from them in awhile…let me make a long distance Skype call.”
Matt – “It’s always awkward when your mom says to you, ‘Matt, you know you don’t really have a butt.’”
Lauren Harlow – “I’m tired of going to bed! I go to bed every night!”
Lauren Harlow to Andrea – “Would you like to join me in my bed?” (about an hour later…) Ashley to Lauren Harlow – “How’s the bed?” Lauren Harlow – “Productive…wait, no!”
Eduardo while reading Matt’s journal (in Spanish) – “Oh Matt, your handwriting is so good…WHAT?! Hitler?”
Cressia to the shower – “Be hot in the name of Jesus!”
Cressia after everyone shared sad stories about saying goodbye to their children and cried – “This is like the best chick flick ever!”
And because we've learned so much about love by being here, I feel it's appropriate to end with a quote about the highest virtue that Emily, Ashley and I stole from a caption of a photo of a Facebook couple we were stalking.
Matt&Melissa<3 4evahbabyyyyyy – “Love is sweet, delicate, dreamy—an eternity of gorgeous moments.”
We're pretty sure they were serious.
Guys, this trip has been amazing and your prayers have made all the difference. It's incredible to think we will be gone in less than 30 minutes. We love you all.
Bye-bye Casa Bernabé. Que Dios te bendiga.
-Mateo (at least for 30 more minutes)
Ashley (handing a computer to Matt)- “Here, Bubba Boo.” Matt- “Thanks…girly….swirly.”
Emily (to Matt while doing dishes)- “Oh stop being so grumpy!” Matt- “What?! I was only staring at this pot thinking how easy it would be to clean it if you covered a squirrel in soap and put it in there and closed the lid!” Others- “What?" “Matt- “Seriously, I’m not mad! I was just thinking about putting woodland creatures in pots, geez.”
Matt- “Apparently I’m allergic to Lauren’s microbes of death.”
Emily (to Matt)- “Matt, be happier!” Matt- “Am I not eating this marshmallow enthusiastically enough for you?!”
Emily- “Okay, act like you love each other in this picture!” Matt gives them all a hug and the photo is taken. Matt- “Ok, can we take another one where I’m not lying with my actions?”
(As we eat a billion marshmallows and chocolate bars) Matt- “Do you know what the third circle of hell is? Gluttony. I’ll meet you there.” Lauren Harlow- “Pound it.”
Matt – “Don’t you know that how I think has nothing to do with what’s happening in reality?!”
Cressia – “Emily, is there a word for wassom in Spanish?” Emily – “Wasabe, wasp, what are you trying to say?” Cressia (singing) – “No, like ‘Our God is a wassom God, he reigns…”
Cressia (over and over, all summer) – “Oh, lots of stars! So many stars!”
Cressia – “Oh! Hips!”
Ashley- “Can you imagine having an identical twin? Having someone who looks just like you running around?” Matt- “It would be good for the world and bad for me. I’d have to split the women and that’s not a part of my game plan.”
Emily – “Sneezing is the most satisfying feeling in the world. Peeing is close, but sneezing is better.”
Andrea – “If you’re not in my head, you wouldn’t understand what I’m thinking.”
Matt – “I’ve never been lightbulb shopping with another man before. It was fun.”
Matt – “Well if I marry one of my random Asian wives, she’ll have a small nose to begin with so it’ll be ok.”
Matt – “Hand me my Special K…if we’re going to talk about babies I need my folic acid!”
Matt to Lauren Harlow – “I’m watching the car wreck that is you right now.”
Lauren Harlow to Matt – “Tell me about your feelings.” Matt – “I haven’t heard from them in awhile…let me make a long distance Skype call.”
Matt – “It’s always awkward when your mom says to you, ‘Matt, you know you don’t really have a butt.’”
Lauren Harlow – “I’m tired of going to bed! I go to bed every night!”
Lauren Harlow to Andrea – “Would you like to join me in my bed?” (about an hour later…) Ashley to Lauren Harlow – “How’s the bed?” Lauren Harlow – “Productive…wait, no!”
Eduardo while reading Matt’s journal (in Spanish) – “Oh Matt, your handwriting is so good…WHAT?! Hitler?”
Cressia to the shower – “Be hot in the name of Jesus!”
Cressia after everyone shared sad stories about saying goodbye to their children and cried – “This is like the best chick flick ever!”
And because we've learned so much about love by being here, I feel it's appropriate to end with a quote about the highest virtue that Emily, Ashley and I stole from a caption of a photo of a Facebook couple we were stalking.
Matt&Melissa<3 4evahbabyyyyyy – “Love is sweet, delicate, dreamy—an eternity of gorgeous moments.”
We're pretty sure they were serious.
Guys, this trip has been amazing and your prayers have made all the difference. It's incredible to think we will be gone in less than 30 minutes. We love you all.
Bye-bye Casa Bernabé. Que Dios te bendiga.
-Mateo (at least for 30 more minutes)
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