We have now completed our 4^th week of ministry, our 3^rd here in Poptun, and I can only say that I am just so thankful for the kids. This Friday, the women of our team led an amazing beauty for ashes events for the moms in one of our ministry locations, and to give them the necessary space, we were put on daddy daycare duty. We had fun teaching the kids about the importance of doing their best, through the Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25), before immediately following that with our own mini-‘Olympics.’ The kids were led through various games like revamped sharks and minnows, improvised horseshoe tossing, and even three-legged racing. Normally, I’m doing soccer ministry which, don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love doing, but it doesn't afford me the same opportunity to bond with the kids.

The absolute highlight of the day for me was just swinging kids around with Jaden and tossing them up in the air. They were having so much fan that they started to line up for us to swing them and all the little smiles and giggles, the laughter that we heard, all this ministry would be worth it, if for only that. It fills me with such warmth and pure joy, it reminds me, that this is what Christ wants for us. Even as I delight in their joy, how much more does the Father delight in ours, with a love that could make even a parent’s, pale in comparison.

I celebrate the Lord because we have ministry hosts who also truly love and care about these kids. Even as we were swinging kids around, I could see the guys from one way hyping the kids up, getting them to cheer one another on. They led the races with such zeal and passion that I see Romans 12:6-8 fulfilled in the energy that they approach ministry with. I can’t stress enough the blessing that it is to be here.

I may be wont to forget as our ministry hours have been long and soccer this week has been taxing, especially as the kids trip you purposefully, but I am thankful for this ministry, and for our hosts. In a house visit, one of our hosts said to a man as he was opening peanuts, that we must be crazy for leaving our comfortable lives in the states and coming to a country where most live in poverty, so that we can live amongst them and serve them. But remembering just the smiles from a few hours before, I could not disagree more. I think this might be the most rational thing I’ve done in a long time, and I have a degree in music so you can trust that to be true.

Every once in a while, as I walk down a street that I’ve never been on before, surrounded by a people whose language I speak brokenly at best, I’m sporadically reminded that this isn’t normal and, in those moments, I am blown away. I’m awestruck by the Lord and His grace, how it has filled and dominated my life to bring about healing, to bring about change in my heart, to break it even, to bring about redemption. For ours is a God that did not come about to make bad men good, but to make dead man live (Leonard Ravenhill). So, as I remember all He has done, I thank the Lord that kids are toss-able.