I woke up Friday morning still in a great deal of pain. I moved slowly and carefully as I dressed and went downstairs to breakfast. I repeated my request for prayers to friends back home. Through prayer and through friends, the Lord repeatedly reminded me that He could change my circumstances or He could change me with the grace to endure them. I was completely confident He would relieve me of that pain when He saw fit, and until such a time, I was determined to enjoy my day with the ladies of Hope Gardens.
My prayer for the ladies that day was that God would "show off." I wanted Him to make His presence known to them and to us in grand and precious ways. We lost cell service once we arrived at Hope Gardens each day, but the last "tweet" I saw before getting off the bus was a verse from Psalm 81 that says, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, open wide your mouth and I will fill it." I had to smile as I remembered all the times the Lord has been faithful to "show off" with His extravagant love and grace.
As we pulled up to Hope Gardens, we had to laugh. Right in front of the admin building sat several residents in pink Spark t-shirts smoking cigarettes and waiting for us to arrive. It was a beautiful (and comical) sight! That morning, we gave the ladies their folders for the weekend and divided them into teams, carefully fixing things so that our previously identified Spanish speakers all ended up in group "S". We were given supplies to decorate a team flag and about 20 minutes to come up with a team name and cheer. It was quickly decided that we would be the "Super Sonadoras" (Super Dreamers) and our cheer was something hoping in Christ and jumping with Jesus. Our cheer was a disaster, but we had so much fun making it up and performing it, nobody seemed to care. Our ladies bonded quickly over their shared language barrier and seemed thrilled that Spark had brought 4 teammates who could communicate with them.
After lunch, we had our first worship time. The spiritual battle in that room was almost unreal. Women were coming and going throughout the music time, staff walkie-talkies sounding off, babies crying, and then Patti got up to teach and basically went temporarily blind, having to stop mid-thought, ask for more lighting, and take time out to pray again and settle into the lesson. It was bizarre. She presented a beautiful lesson to our ladies about the love of God and his care for them based out of Psalm 91. And, then we had our first serious small group time. Only four of our ladies stayed for the small group discussion, but their sharing was full of transparency, and I began to really long for each of them to encounter Jesus in a fresh way through our time together. As we talked about the love of God and His unchanging nature despite all our shortcomings, I heard myself saying to the ladies, "You know, God has the power to change our circumstances, and sometimes, that's His way, but more often, it's His desire to change us through our circumstances." I had to smile as I thought about the pain in my back and the grace (and Motrin!) He'd provided me throughout the day.
At dinner that night, I sat alone with a woman named Maria. She shared with me about her two young children, and the poor relationship decisions she'd made that brought her to Hope Gardens, not just once but twice. And, she mentioned at least two other shelters she'd been in previously. Then, she dropped the real bomb on me. She was 32 years old -- the age I'd just turned the day before. The reality of her life nearly broke my heart. I listened and affirmed the good choices she's made recently, but I went away with a heavy heart.
Friday night was reserved for "Sparky's Rootin' Tootin' Stampede", a variety show made up of skits put on by various Spark team members as well as some Hope Gardens residents. Our first hurdle, though, was attempting to translate "Rootin' Tootin'"! We had a big laugh over that one!
By the time we got on the bus that night, I was beginning to experience some relief from the pain in my back, and I slept really well that night. This was a very good thing, since we were scheduled to spend nearly 2 hours on the bus Saturday morning heading to the Wrightwood Guest Ranch in the nearby mountains.
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