beautiful things

All around, hope is springing up from this old ground.

Out of chaos life is being found in You.

You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of the dust.

You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of us.

I can't get these lyrics out of my head... or stop playing the song on repeat for that matter :) It reminds me so much of the Dominican and everything we want Esperanza to be about. Our prayer is that Esperanza brings hope to people and that they find new life in Christ. And we know and trust that God is going to make beautiful things through this ministry.

The Dominican (as always!) has been on my heart a lot recently. I am so thankful for everything about my time spent there. One thing I never expected to gain there were new American AND Canadian family members. The people in these pictures have blessed my life more than I ever thought possible... and the greatest part about it is that they continue to do so! I worked with, ate with, and shared a room with these people. I was with them almost 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We hung out together, laughed together, and cried together. And after spending a year and a half with them, I most certainly consider them a part of my family. You would think that we would have gotten sick of each other, but really, it just feels weird not having them around every day. Right now we are all in different places, but they continue to encourage me and support me and remain such a special part of my life. You all are HUGE blessings :)

Elizabeth, Julie, me, Christine, and Bryson

Bryson, Elizabeth, Christine, Coco, and me

I love and miss you guys!

I'm also missing those MC kids, limoncillos, cafe con leche y canela, the Jaibon boys, warm days, the twins' laughs, Chipa's smile, las cocineras, adventura, rice and beans, starry nights, mi hermanito, culto, Jonel's confused language, baking whatever we could find in the kitchen, mod-podging anything in site, watching basketball with 10 kids piled on a bench, playa popa, getting rolos, and hanging out with some amazing kids...