eyes so full of hope.

As it gets closer and closer to time for me to come home for a while, it gets harder and harder to be here in Haiti. I sit or lay for hours in my free time and dream about home..

I want to be cold. I want to sit on the counters in the kitchen with my sisters and talk and laugh for hours. I want to sleep until 11:00 in the morning. I want to lay on the couches in the living room and watch shows my Mom has saved on DVR. I want to watch YouTube videos without having to wait 30 minutes for them to load. I want to worship at Calvary Baptist Church with my family there. I want to plop onto Kiersten's bed and talk about life and love and everything in between. I want to watch Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice with Katie Floyd. I want to see where my brother lives now, and where my sister and her husband live now. I want to get in my car and drive to Walmart and buy something. I want to run to the Redbox and rent a movie. I want to call anybody and everybody and talk for as long as I want without worrying about having to buy more minutes. I want to come in my front door and be all but knocked over by the dogs so happy to see me. I want to be able to sit still without a fan to move air and not have to swat mosquitoes. I want to go out to eat with John, hold his hand, hug his neck, kiss his face.These are all things I want, and it is HARD to not be able to have them.

But you wanna know whats harder? Today we visited our other orphanage, the one that we brought up out of a mudhole in Site Soley. I had never been there before. There are around 70 kids.. all with short hair, dark brown skin, dark brown eyes. They all look alike, and there is a ton of them. I have learned enough Creole to carry on somewhat of a conversation. Today a beautiful little girl with an innocent face and hopeful eyes sat beside me. She asked me my name. "Chelsey." She asked me how old I am. "Twenty-three." And then, with eyes filled with more expectation and hope than I had ever seen, she asked me "Can you adopt me?" I was stunned. What was I supposed to say to this? I mumbled and incoherently tried to explain that I'm only 23, that I'm not even married. She didn't care. "Yes, but can you adopt me?" I had to look into her soft brown eyes so full of hope and tell her I'm sorry.. no, no, I can't adopt you. I want to, but I cannot. This made missing all the things I've ever missed about America seem easy. It made me want to beg God to make missing home the hardest thing I have to do on a daily basis, because it is EASY compared to looking at beautiful children who are desperate for a Mom who loves them individually and unconditionally, wanting so badly to be that Mom for them, and knowing that I cannot.

I don't know what else to say tonight. I am heartbroken for this little girl and the millions of others in Haiti and around the world... millions of children who don't know their birthdays, who have no one to sing them lullabies or rock them to sleep, who have no one to take their temperature and watch them while they sleep when they are sick, who have no one who knows their favorite color or their favorite food. Children who feel forgotten and unloved, children without parents.

Tonight I ask for prayer. Prayer for this little girl, for the other 70 something kids that live with her, for the handful of kids in our Children's Home who don't have families yet, for all the kids around the world waiting to be taken "home" to homes that they have only been able to dream about so far. Prayer for me and for my heart, because it is sad and broken tonight. Prayers for Chadasha and other organizations working in Haiti, trying to show the Love of Jesus to these children and minister to their brokenness.

It is only in our brokenness that we can witness the power of God, the faithfulness of His promises. I am resting in that assurance tonight. Mesi Jezi!