Day 3 Report: What does love require of me?
Day 3: July 13th / 10:30pm local time.
Today was great but tough!
Our middle of the week fatigue kicked in today. It was hot and many on our team had to work outside. However I was amazed at how our team rallied around our mission, motto, and each other.
Highlights of today include:
More mowing with a machete. Why you ask?? Tesoros de Dios was recently able to buy the small field adjacent to their facility. Horse therapy is a large portion of their rehabilitation so they plan to use this field to expand this part of their treatment. As you can imagine, they do not have a lot of full time help to clear a field so our teams have been a huge blessing to them in this area. Who know removing stumps was part of ministry!?!?!
Home visits. Today portions of our team got to visit the homes of some of the special needs families that attend Tesoros. These families cannot make it to Tesoros on a daily basis so on these days the staff comes to them. Our team got to help assist in the home therapy and pray for these families.
Watercolor Painting. This afternoon our girls at House of Hope got to simply sit down and spend some quality time with the residents. We bought a few sets of water color paints and while the boys entertained the kiddos, our girls bonded over the simple idea of art. I loved the smiles and giggles of the group. For a moment, they were all simply girls (of all ages) having fun!
After our day of hard work, we passed on the hotel chow and treated the students to a night at the mall. They had to order their own food from the food court (that was funny!) and spent a little time shopping. I am continually impressed with how they represent our church!
Before I share our end of evening discussions I want to highlight the young men on our trip. Back home these guys are labeled by the sport they play, the activities they are involved in, or the school they attend. Many times this causes them to put on a certain “persona”…..this quite often progresses into manhood as most of us know! However the other leaders and I have been continually impressed with how they have let their guards down. They give piggy back rides until they are exhausted. They play soccer, duck duck goose, and color with kids. To the moms and dads of the young men on this trip…give them a big hug when they get home. You should be proud of them!
We ended our night by asking question #2.
I reminded them of our motto: “It’s not about me” and of the first question I asked them Monday night: “What breaks my heart?”
We then introduced question #2: Once I know what breaks my heart; What does love require of me?
We discussed that once God puts a cause on our heart, once our heart breaks, love requires us to act. When we do – it will cost us.
It will cost us money.
It will cost us time.
It will cost us convenience.
It will cost us our reputation.
Ultimately it will cost us some life….
The problem with this is that we are by nature life preservers. We don’t like giving these things up. However when we decide to move in the direction of what breaks our heart, we have to let go of the things we are trying to preserve.
What does love require of us? The answer, some of our life……
Keep your prayers coming! Tomorrow is our last day of service. We desire to honor God by finishing well!
Brad Flurry 