One word to describe my week in Nashville would be rewarding.
I am so thankful that God gave me so much within six days, even when I didn’t deserve it. Going into the trip I expected to basically be on vacation, and hangout with my friends because of what youth mission trips had been in the past. I’m so glad to get to say I was wrong. Although it was a vacation from everyday life, and I was hanging out with my friends, it was a week long God moment.
My whole life I’ve had this strange love for everything larger than life, and for reality TV, and I guess you could say drama. Maybe this wasn’t just who I am? Maybe this has been God’s plan all along? I don’t understand? Well it definitely was. I was led straight to Project Connect (the Vacation Bible School (VBS) we were working at) and led directly to these little girls who embodied everything I’ve come to love.
A lot of people would say that it wasn’t a good thing that they acted the way they did. But I would say it was perfect. I formed an especially close bond with one of the little girls and it never would have happened if she hadn’t acted exactly like the people I’ve always watched on Reality TV. On my first day she used cuss words that most adults are scared to say to people, and knew nothing wrong of it.
What do you do when a little girl uses language like that to you? I laughed and then I spoke life into her. I told her how much I love her and how much God loves her and how I can see what she can do in her life. Within my time there I saw the changes through her, and no she didn’t change and become the dictionary definition of an angel, she was still cussing me out on the last day, but I knew that she respected that I didn’t love hearing her use that language, and I can tell that I showed her that there’s a different life for her to live than what she’s growing up with. No I’m not saying I made her into a cookie cutter Christian, I’m saying God planted a seed in her kind and enormous heart through me that is going to shine in the world and in her community when she realizes that’s the path she chooses.
Through the week I got news that her and he family were moving. They were moving to a house on the east side of Nashville, is what she told me. I was happy for her because she told me she would have her own bedroom, and she wouldn’t be living so tightly in an apartment anymore because her family is quite large. So I spent every minute that I was at the VBS with her and continued what I was doing and praying for this little girl’s life.
At the end of our time there it was really hard to say goodbye. I walked her back to her apartment and I told her mom how thankful I am for letting me share her week with her daughter. I had to do this as her mom was putting things in a U-Haul. I heard her mom tell her that they were going to a hotel tonight and it confused me why they would do that when they had a new house. Her mom told me that they didn’t have a house to move in to, and that they were going to the hotel for tonight, but after that, they’re going to have no where to live. I was crushed.
I went back to the church my youth group was staying at, and the whole night I sobbed. Why would you lead me to this little girl, God? Why would you make me watch her life fall apart, and have me know that I can’t do anything about it? Next week she won’t be at the VBS with the next group, next week she won’t even have an apartment to share with 13 people, next week I won’t be there to let her know she’s loved and that the life she’s living now isn’t what she has to live in the future.
I cried for days after, even writing this I could cry, but it wasn’t until I got home and my sister brought a new realization to me. I hated myself for not putting faith into God, knowing that I’ll see the plan eventually. My sister comforted me with the idea that maybe God was doing this so that she’ll be put in a shelter or even placed by children services in a new family. Sad, but it would be a different life than what she had. I knew then, that I wasn’t supposed to protect her through her whole life, that I was there only six days, to show her the love that I’ve been given.
I know I made an impact in her heart, that will change her life when she is old enough to realize it. I focused so much on how God made her a certain way so that I could find her, but I know now that he made me a certain way so that she could find me too. I am so thankful for Adventures in Missions for making this week possible, for showing me that when I return home, I have to speak love and life into everyone I encounter, just like I did to that little girl.
