A name I never learned and a face I'll never forget.

I figured it was about time I started telling some stories about my trip to Ecuador. I thought I would start out sharing about when we went to an aids orphanage and spent the afternoon playing with the children there. When we first arrived I was handed a little girl who had been sleeping so I was able to just hold her and love on her while she slept.

You could tell from her physical appearance that she was much more sick then the other children. Once she finally woke up she wouldn't speak and showed absolutely no emotion. It wasn't until about 15 minutes before we left that she finally opened up to me and started laughing and playing with me, she still wouldn't speak and I never did learn her name.

 When it was finally time to go and my entire team had already left and got on the bus I had someone tell her that I had to leave now and tried saying goodbye, she instantly latched herself to me and wouldn't let go. My heart broke into a million pieces as I tried to sit her down and she started screaming and holding onto me tighter. I felt physically incapable of letting her go; I just couldn't do it by myself. Another girl had to help me put her down, the whole time she is still screaming and crying. I would have just taken her with me if I could have but I had to walk away with her crying and reaching for me, my heart hurt so bad as I walked back to the bus no longer being able to hold back my emotions. As I said before I never did learn her name and I may never know what happens to her but I'm so happy I was able to hold her and allow her to feel safe and love on her even if it was just for a little bit. She will now forever be my motivation and reminder about my dream to give a home to orphans one day.

I just spent 10 days in another country with a bunch of strangers.

The title of this post is sort of a lie. Yes, I did just go to another country for 10 days but the people I went with are no longer strangers to me. 

The picture above is just one day after this crazy group of people met each other and were already becoming fast friends.

So as some of you may or may not know when I signed up for this missions trip to Ecuador I did not know a single person going. It was so not like me to travel with such a large group of people who at the time were strangers, I sometimes still can't believe I went through with it but am SO glad that I did. I plan on writing more about my trip in future posts but I wanted to write just a little something before I go home to California (I'm still in Florida) about the people I went with. 

First of all God had is hand all up in this trip if you know what I mean, starting with the group of people he sent there. I didn't think it was possible for such a large group of people who had never met to mesh and get along so well. I'm the type of person who kind of sits back and observes things a lot and I would find myself just kind of watching everyone mingling, chatting, laughing and just thoroughly enjoying each other's company and think "Wow God, you are so good."  I've been on missions trips before but always with people I knew already and it never failed that people fought, feelings got hurt, and there was always drama. So people getting along for 10 days together kind of blew my mind. Personally I have a hard time making new friends, well that's what I thought before this trip. I don't know if it's because of all the awesome people that it made it easy for me to make friends or the fact the the Holy Spirit was sort of nudging me along the whole time to step out of my comfort zone a little bit but making friends on this trip was almost effortless. I've never gotten so close to people in such a short time before, after like day 3 we were all comfortable talking about our bowel movements with each other, I mean you can't get much closer then that lol. I believe I made a lot of forever friends on this trip. I can't wait to continue our friendships from here, hopefully getting to visit some people soon :) 

I will definitely be writing more posts about all the amazing things I experienced on this trip but I just kind of wanted to preface it with a little bit about all the people who I went on this trip with because honestly it wouldn't have been the same without them. I already feel like I'm having withdrawals from hanging out with them everyday. If you went on this trip with me and are reading this then let me tell you that I miss you already! 

Btw, #wheresmario 

-Jamie