A day at the hospital and orphanage

Yesterday we had a packed day. We took a group of our students to the local public hospital and spent some time meeting with patients and praying for them. It was a very different experience for myself and I am sure for our students. When presented with the opportunity, I struggled and if I am honest, I wasn't really excited about barging into some strangers room. All I could think of is how I would have felt if complete strangers walked into my hospital room back in January. I am not sure I would have loved that, in fact, I am pretty sure I would have asked them to leave. Nothing like being in awful pain and having someone come in who doesn't speak your language. Although the first room was incredibly awkward for me personally, there was something in the eyes of the patients that made me really feel like they were glad we were there. I was so proud of the students. They stepped out on a leap of faith and spent time just loving these people. Billy, a senior at Plainfield South was up to pray for a patient. We walked in and heard that she had a stab wound to her chest. She had tried to take her life. Due to family troubles and financial difficulties, she felt like there was no hope. Although she was healing and doing much better, there was so much pain and hurt in her life. While we were there her and her husband came to the decision that they wanted to begin a journey with Christ. I think Billy expressed it the best when he said, "It was awesome to see that it doesn't matter who we are. I am not the best prayer and I stumbled through what I thought was an awful prayer. Instead God took that and used it in her life and now she has hope. It just shows me that no matter who it is, God can use us if we just say yes."

Today, we took the orphanage kids to the pool. As we got to know these kids stories, I am astounded at what these young kids have gone through. Their stories are crazy. Abuse, drug use, sexual abuse... you name it they have experienced it. Today, I took an incredible amount of joy in watching our students make these kids smile and laugh. Here are some of the snapshots.