Brethren Women’s Retreat-  Darla was invited to speak at the Brethren Women’s Retreat in Shipshewana this year!  What an honor that was.  It is a conglomeration of many Brethren churches around the area, and this year the First Brethren Church in Goshen was responsible for planning it.  They did a spectacular job, as everything was organized, cozy and decorated!  Darla was the main speaker for the weekend, and spoke Saturday morning, evening, and then again on Sunday morning. Again, her words were powerful, and we felt the Holy Spirits presence the entire weekend.  What a refreshing retreat to be apart of.

Darla brought to them the conference, “Returning to Joy When the Pain is Too Deep For Children,” while we were there. Not only the staff from Oasis were there, but some local leaders from there communities, as well as staff from other surrounding orphanages. Altogether there were around 50-60 attendees. The concepts they learned, they were riveted by, and really found uses for.

The Oasis is now transforming from just solely being a place of shelter for these girls, and teenagers, into more of an emotionally and spiritually driven place for them to heal. The time we spent here was amazing, and we’v been invited back for a consultation trip.

La Limonada was our last stop, in Guatemala City, Guatemala. La Limonada literally means ‘The Lemonade” and is labeled as the most dangerous place in all of Guatemala. It is one mile long, and one mile wide, and has over 60,000 residents. La Limonada is over run by gang members, massive poverty, abuse, and drugs and alcohol.

But here we met a woman named Tita Everest. Seventeen years ago, Tita was invited to a birthday part in La Limonada, and felt that God was calling her to start a school right in the middle of the chaos of this place.  God answered her prayer, and now there are two schools in La Limonada! There is also a micro fianance system here, where they loan people money to start their own small businesses, and a safe house called “Mi Casita.”

Darla, again, did the conference “Returning to Joy When the Pain is Too Deep for Children” for their staff and it was amazing! God really opened many of their hearts, and taught them many things.

Before the conference, we were apart of an awesome opportunity to tour La Limonada. We got to experience, first hand, the poverty, danger, and darkness that this place portrayed. But that wasn’t all that was there.  Hope is rising within this slum, you can just feel it. We got to meet many families, some of which are lost, but some of which are alive with Christ.

One instance, in partficular, sticks out to us. We entered a house of a small family, where we were taken back to the back room.  There, laid a 90 year old man in his bed. His hair was silvery white, and the walls around him were pure cement, with nothing else in the room besides his bed, a radio, and old bike, and a ladder. But this man had the light of Christ in his eyes. He was absolutely glowing! Our friend and translator, Hubert, immediately sat with him on his bed, and held his hand. They laughed and joked, and the elderly man was very spunky. We sang with him, and prayed for him, and as we left, we noticed that Hubert set a radio right above his head. We of course couldn’t understand what was being said on the radio because it was in Spanish. Darla asked Hubert what he was listening to. Hubert’s response was simple: “The Bible.”

This man gets it. Completely bed ridden, dirty, probably pretty hungry, and lonely, he makes sure that his number one priority is to listen to the Word of God, and act on it. Let’s hope that when we’re that age, we are half of what this man portrayed to us.

Did you know that light moves at a velocity of about 300,000 kilometers each second, so in one year, it travels about 9,500,000,000,000 kilometers. Did you also know that there is a new star created every second. The sun is approximately 93,026,734 miles away from earth, and burns at the core at a temperature of 22.5 million degrees Fahrenheit. Our universe was not an accident.

The point of all of this is that we are really, really small. In the scheme of things, earth is teeny tiny! We can go on in life, thinking that we are the point of creation, or that our problems are bigger than most things. Although God does care so much about the smallest things in our lives, and most certainly the bigger issues too, we serve a God that is to be feared and loved. When God spoke, the sun came into existence!  The sun is 22.5 million degrees Fahrenheit! That is something that we cannot comprehend.

So do not place God in a box with yourself as the leader of all things. God is in charge, and desires to lead us, and lead us with love and wisdom. The God that we serve is the God who created everything. Even the very cross that his son died on. At this reality, we bow down, and worship our loving Creator.