Let's Risk the Ocean

“You hold the orphan in Your loving arms, this is who You are”

what i would give to be kissing her sweet cheek right now. oh my precious carla. 

Oh Elena. Melt my heart, every time.

Sitting here knowing I only have eleven more days at Emmanuel with my loves is breaking my heart. This is no longer just a mission trip; I’m doing life with these girls. I’m no longer just serving; I’m living life with them. I’m growing closer to all their sweet hearts and the Lord has truly broken me for the people here. The one question this one sweet girl Johana keeps asking me is when will you be back? Honestly, I don’t know. All I can tell her is if it’s in the Lords plan, I will be back. There is no doubt in my mind I am leaving my heart here. But with my experience with missions and just doing life, the Lord has blessed by not making me confortable. When I get into a routine and start to plan my next step the Lord thankfully takes me off my pedestal and continues to humble me to His will. So if I had to guess, as much as I hate saying this, I don’t know if I will be back to Emmanuel. Although believe me, if I were planning my life, I would never leave. But who knows the Lord may surprise me. It’s so reassuring that the Lord has already planned my whole life out before the creation of the earth. I don’t have to worry about a thing. It’s all up to Him and I love every minute of that. So with that being said, I’m trying to soak up every ounce of my last days. Not let any smile go unseen. Not let any heart go unloved. I want to take these last few days and really make sure these kids know the love of their Savior. Because, let’s face it, to worship You, to honor You, to adore You is the only reason we live. 

Hola from Honduras (: I’m guessing ya’ll have figured out, I don’t have much access to internet so it’s been so great to truly get away but when I am on since it isn’t my internet I’m using, I’m trying to keep the time spent to a minimum. So if I forget to write on your wall or respond to your email, nothing against you. I’m just trying to be quick. Oh Ps to those who have texted me.. I have my phone but am not reading anything so warning you may have additional charges seeing as how I’m no longer in the states. Just if you haven’t noticed yet. With that being said just to let you know I’m 2 hours behind so if you have any tips for the future, let me know. So being two hours behind I’m just going to keep time traveling back a few days and not blog about today or this whole trips so far but just specifically one day (that will come later, don’t worry). But just, June 21. My 18^th birthdayyyy (: Some of ya’ll maybe thinking, man I would want to be home on my birthday, spending it in a foreign country with well let’s face it, no one knowing it’s a big day for you. But listen, you are sooo wrong. Side note- I don’t wish I was home for my birthday, I wish everyone could have been here with me. Anyways, an 18^th birthday I probably should have been home buying like lottery tickets and ordering off of infomercials but instead I was waking up at 6:00, opening gifts from one of my best friends (uh thank you sooo much Alexandra, everything was perfect. Love you lots) and not worrying about looking cute because why would I need to I was headed with Marjorie to serve breakfast to the sweet sweet middle girls. As a surprise they all sang a song to me and since my spanish is flawless and everything I figured out it was something along the lines of happy birthday and then they followed that with happy birthday in English. It was so perfect in everyway. So next thing on my birthday list was to go do something all 18 year olds would do.. go sit in a clinic for 3 hours. Well okay, maybe not everyone who turns 18 does that but I got to. It was just me, Christopher, Alexis and Marbie. Hanging out and watching toy story 2 for the 24^th time. When all of a sudden, no power. As you can quickly guess the room started to get hot with no fans on, but hey who cares I’m 18 and they sang to me again. So after I was done with my clinic shift, Marjorie, Kate and I headed up to the tienda for a birthday soda. By the way, I’m rooming with Kate and Marjorie. They are both so sweet and such a blessing to be serving with. Anyways, once we got back from the tienda, it was time for showers and dinner with the middle girls. If you haven’t guessed, that’s what we do. Hang out with the 10-15 year old girls, roughly 40 of them. They are probably the most precious girls ever. The Lord really blessed me placing me with them. Even though one day I accidently started a rumor that I’m pregnant, once again can’t you tell how the Lord blessed me with a gift for languages? But don’t worry mom, we got that cleared up very quickly and now they all know I’m not pregnant. Back to what I was saying, Marjorie and I get the privilege to help serve all three meals to them during the week. So we helped serve dinner (rice, meat and a tortilla, like always) and then moved basically to a girl’s locker room to pass out shampoo, soap and help brush hair. Where sweet Carla gave me a homemade bracelet. And on the way out I got to talk more to my babe, Esmeralda. I may or may not be obsessed with this little sass. She is so pretty and so sweet and I just can’t get enough of her. Even if she is correcting my spanish all the time. But then when we got back home, I found my bunk bed decorated with balloons and streamers and one of the girls, Chelsea, made the best cake everrr. Not to mention all the volunteers traveled down to a bon fire and made bread on a stick. What? Yes, Thanks to the Danish here for showing us that. So let me be honest after all of that I got to lay in a hot hot room with still no electricity and I wouldn’t change one thing. Here’s to being 18 (: I’ll blog again soon, can’t wait to tell you all that the Lord is doing here and in my life. Miss you all.

“Where You go we will follow. It’s Your love that we adore. It’s like a sea without a shore. We’re lost in You, Were lost in You” 

So here goes nothing, first blog post. #nopressure. Well here’s the thing, in about 5 hours I will be getting up to get ready for one of the biggest adventures in my life. Not only am I about to embark on a trip that requires me to navigate through spanish airports with Marjorie Lupas, I am also leaving the states for a 5 week mission trip. Yes, that’s right. 5 weeks. Crazy, huh? If you were to ask me last year what I planned on doing summer after my senior year, a 5 week mission trip to Honduras would probably be the last thing I had in mind. I seriously still can’t believe it. 5 weeks. Alright, I’ll stop saying 5 weeks.. starting now. Just still mind blowing. Well how about another mind blowing thing while I’m at it. So I had lunch with my big sister, Lexie Ware, the other day and she reminded me of something. She reminded me that before time existed the Lord had it planned for me to go on this trip. That’s so weird, because I could have never imagined it but the Lord, like always, had my best interest in mind and provided me with the trip, already planned out just how He wants. Like let’s be real, this is perfect timing. This summer before I leave for college, I will be in a foreign country so out of my comfort zone, fully relying on the Lord and loving on sweet orphans. It’s going to be so humbling and so wonderful just to serve the Lord in every way I can. I know it is going to be an experience way too powerful and out of this world to even begin to put into words but I’m going to try. As most of you probably would guess, the internet at Orphanage Emmanuel will be very temperamental but I’m going to try my best to at least get a post or a picture up once a week, hopefully more often though. Well pressure is off my first blog post is over. But hey, let’s keep in mind, I’m not a writer or anything close, just Sydney here, wanting to share my experience. Well that’s it for now, hasta luego. talk to you from Hondo with this sweet nino (: