hold fast

Today is Orphan Sunday. But for me, well, basically every Sunday is spent with kids the world would label “orphans”. People message me every now and again, telling me what a great job I’m doing helping these kids, but here’s the thing - they give me so much more than I do, will or could ever give them. They are the brightest thing in my week - they love so well. And that in itself is a miracle, because as a friend wrote earlier, “it takes love to give love” and these kids, well they haven’t had nearly enough love in their lives. They light up the room with their smiles, laughs and ridiculous comments. They love each other (mostly), love their tias, love the random gringos that rock up during the week. They are a gift, and I get to see that, but I know that sometimes you guys miss out on that. David Platt wrote, “Orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they’re not real before...

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. To Write Love On Her Arms is running a campaign called #ikeptliving, encouraging us all to share the reasons why we're glad we kept living. My voice will just be one among thousands, tens of thousands - and it will not be nearly as well written. But I've been there. I've thought I would be better off dead. I've thought the world would be better off without me. Because while I've never tried, I've wanted to try. And that's just one step away. So I want my voice out there. I couldn't forgive myself if I thought I hadn't done anything. --- Here's the thing - my life is pretty great. It's always been pretty great. And on the day (because I can pinpoint it) when I was struck down by this 'black dog', my life was awesome. I was at uni, studying to do the job I knew God had made me for, I was planning a trip to my favourite country on earth, co-leading a team of young people I was going to...

So, we're leaving the EU. It's official, it happened. I was against it, but maybe you were for it. That's okay, we disagree, it happens, still friends. And I trust that when you voted, it was because you truly believed it was for the best. But while you celebrate, think. Think of the people living here, working here, who have built a life here - but who weren't born here. They had no say in this election, but it will impact on them, far beyond our understanding. I don't know what this will mean for them, but neither do you. However, here is what I do know, as someone who lives as a resident in a country not their own - essentially an immigrant*. It is scary to live in a country where you have no say. It is scary when votes happen and you can do nothing but shoulder the outcome. Your life is in the hands of the people around you, and oftentimes, those who shout the loudest win. And that is terrifying, because those who shout the loudest, well they...

When I moved to Bolivia the first time with Dan, we tried out a number of different churches. We were always rolling up with like 6 or 7 kids - so that is a pretty good test for how loving/understanding/accepting a church is. We never came across any who really didn't want us there, but we often felt bad because the kids were noisy and unsettled and that was distracting and being stared at as the white person with all the Bolivian kids is really my least favourite thing (and it happens every. single. day.) Fast forward to November 2014, and we finally tried the church recommended to us by our Spanish teacher. I don't remember the service, or the sermon, or much else. But what I do remember is walking out and saying to Dan, "well, I think we found it..." When I came back I started straight back up and it was like I never left. (Outside of the kids, it was the thing I was most excited to get back to.) The pastor is awesome, he's a great speaker, goes through boo...

As I picked him up and lay him down to change him, he was in that half-awake, calm and cuddly state. I pulled his onesie over his head, and I saw it, probably for the hundredth time. That scar that runs down his chest, right over his heart. And I realised that today, seven months after it’s owner, that scar turned two years old. Two years ago today, a doctor opened his chest, and fixed that little fighter of a heart, holes patched, good as new, and sewed him up again. And now all he has to remember it by is the white line, long since healed, but still visible. As I set him on his feet and watched him run about, I was awestruck. Grateful, that God gave him this chance, grateful that I had the chance to know him. So incredibly grateful for the amazing people God had lined up to care for him back then. Few of the kids in the hogar have been quite as spoilt as him. And as I thought about this surgery that undoubtedly saved his life, and as I watched him running around in f...

So, I had to type something up for the Mission Partner's Breakfast this morning. I thought I would cheat, and use it as a blog post - because really, I have exactly zero time to type any other one. --- I couldn’t choose one item, so I’ve decided to choose all of the millions of photos I take on a minute-by-minute basis. Each of the photos tells a story - some are stupid, like the day I walked in to find the girls in Casa de Amor had used hundreds of bobbles to make their hair stand on end, or the day the boys in my class decided to give the teddy bears a bath in the water tray because they were dirty (they have yet to fully recover). Some are sad - photos of families who have come to visit nieces, granddaughters, only to be refused permission for the children’s welfare - photos taken because maybe it is all they’ll know of their relatives. Photos of goodbye parties as children come and go with their missionary families, and children learn to say goodbye much earlie...

So, a couple of weeks ago I recorded an interview for Encounter on doubt. Since I haven't blogged in a very long time, and I don't have the inclination to actually write anything new - I thought I would post  what I wrote for it. You may not see the video, ever. It was recorded first thing in the morning. 1. What part have doubts played in your faith as you learn to follow Jesus? I am a doubter by nature. It’s just a part of who I am and how my head works. I’m not talking just God stuff, in general life too. (TV shows really bring it out in me…) But it did show itself most clearly in my relationship with Jesus. I had crippling doubts from I was 9. I remember clearly the night it started, and I lay in bed crying because what if God wasn’t real?! But I was scared to admit it incase people thought less of me, (or less of my parents) and so I just chose not to think about them. But that obviously didn’t work - and it certainly didn’t help with growing in my relationship wi...

When I was about 14 I was told by my Religious Studies teacher that I was "too black and white". This is basically the story of my life. I feel too much. I think too much. I argue too much. I am maturing though, and I'm finally coming to realise that there are things that are not worth fighting over. But there are things that are. --- Teenage girls are infuriating, but they're also my favourite. (Because I was one.) Watching them let Jesus take the wheel of all those blazing hormones raging around their bodies - well it makes life worth living. And here's the thing - Jesus is awesome. Like crazy awesome. And He can handle teenage girls. (I say all this like our 20th birthday is the day the crazy dies. Clearly how it works.) You know who cannot handle teenage girls? Us . And so we say to them that they need to do this, or that, or the other - because that is what Jesus would do. That's what Jesus wants. But the truth is that what w...

This post isn't about one child. It isn't even really about me. It's about people all over the world, joined together by a pain, by a longing, an aching. People who have loved children unconditionally, children who were not theirs. Children who were not theirs, but who felt like theirs. Who they chose to love like they were theirs, who they chose to love like this wasn't a short term thing. Even though they were warned over and over not to do it. You see, though we come from different countries, though we speak different languages - we ache the same. We ache for children who are no longer ours. Maybe we're still in their lives, maybe we're not. Maybe we're happy with the life they have now, maybe we're not. Each of our situations are different, but they hurt the same. But here's the interesting thing, it's an ache we wouldn't give up. An ache we wouldn't give away. Because what that child got in return, well that's w...