Stretching Beyond Limits

As I've written about in the past, human trafficking is something God has spent the past few years making me painfully aware of.  I prayed a prayer several months ago, asking Him to give me opportunities to help with this crisis I could no longer ignore.  I have joined a local task force against trafficking through my church, but I also wanted to go into all the world and reach victims and at-risk individuals everywhere.  

After a few months, a 5 year old little girl named Isadora appeared on the Compassion International website.  She lives in a red light district full of child prostitution.  In this slum, children as young as five are prostitutes, and children as young as eight are becoming pregnant.  Isadora herself hasn't been a victim of these things, but Compassion is working into this community to proactively protect her and her peers.  Additionally, Isadora wants to be a ballerina when she grows up.  I was a ballerina for more than eight years, and it is still has a very big piece of my heart.  I also have an entire bin full of ballerina-themed stickers and whatnot saved for the girls who I currently sponsor.  Sponsoring Isadora just made sense, and I wanted to so badly.

 

I began to pray and pray and pray for Isadora.  I posted her picture on Facebook, asking if anyone would sponsor her, since I had no idea how I could, or should, stretch my ministry budget any farther.  After about a day, she was gone from the website and it said she had been chosen by someone else.  When I saw this, I fell to my knees and literally begged,

"God I KNOW I was supposed to sponsor her!  I don't know how to make it work, but PLEASE let her come back onto the site!"

Against all odds, a few minutes later, she was on the website again!  And this time she stayed- for days.  Somehow, I still didn't sponsor her, still doubting if I could.  I continued to pray and share her picture.  When I shared her with a friend who I know from one of my previous mission trips, he fell for her as strongly as I did.  He decided that he wanted to sponsor Isadora, but wanted to let me write to her! 

I have a friend who is visiting her area in May, and is delivering a pair of ballerina slippers to her for me.

Oh, and that area?  It's in Brazil!  

Between this new venture, preparing to return to Honduras, and advocating for the 200 children who we are hoping to see sponsored from the new center we are kicking off in Honduras, I felt my heart stretching beyond its limits.  In a way, trying to poetically word these stories, while reading hundreds more on various social media platforms, my heart gets overwhelmed.  The enemy has, at times, left me wondering if there is really anything special about these things after all.  Now Brazil too?  I didn't know what to do with it all.  Then the other night, I was in my bedroom writing my first letter to Isadora and looking at her picture in disbelief.  I already loved her so much, but squeezing this new mission into my life...it was messy...it didn't fit.  As I wrote her letter and looked at her picture, though, God took that overwhelming fear in my heart and instantly replaced it with joy.  When I say instantly, I mean I glanced over at Isadora's picture and was hit with instantaneous love for this child, unable to even comprehend how much I already loved her. 

In that moment, God intertwined my and Isadora's hearts.  I didn't know how, but suddenly, it fit.  If you would like to know more about the work being done in Isadora's community, click here to watch a short documentary about the area.