I was supposed to go to Africa last summer.

After all, I had been to Africa before on a mission trip, and I love Africa, so naturally, when the opportunity arose to go back, I jumped at the chance.

Funny, though, how God had other plans.

As the team for Africa began to fall apart, and seeing how the funding never really came in, I joked with my friend Anna Hart about how, maybe I should just go to Bolivia for the summer since I already had the time off of work. I’ll never forget what she told me, “Don’t joke, Kirsten. God will get ya.”

Shortly thereafter, things began to fall into place, and it became perfectly clear that God HAD gotten me. Somehow I got wrapped up in God’s passion for the Bolivia Life Center, without ever stepping foot on the property. From certain signs to receiving the funds to go within a week, I knew that God had something special planned for this trip, I just couldn’t imagine what that might be.

So I went to Bolivia for two weeks in the summer of 2007, as an individual, for I had been placed on two teams that I had never met before. I really didn’t know what was in store for me, I just went, knowing that there was work to be done, and somehow I was going to help accomplish that work.

Attending the CIN banquet and hearing people talk about the Life Center, I had an idea of what was in store for me when I stepped off the bus, but I never expected the way it would effect me. Atypical of the cliche  stories I had heard, about waves of emotions flooding you when you see the boys running alongside the bus, I actually felt devoid of emotion. I thought something might be wrong with me, because I lacked compassion for these boys, who had been through so much and had so little. I stood there, while the rest of the team embraced the boys they knew and introduced themselves to those they didn’t. I just stood and watched, wondering what in the world God had brought me here for.

It wasn’t until later on that week, that I realized, God was trying to teach me something I had never learned growing up. I had never learned about love, at least, not in the way one would think. I had no problem loving others, rather it was accepting love that I had always had a problem with. I guess one could say, that I never felt truly worthy, of being loved, not only by people but also by God. Maybe it was the past sins in my life, who knows, but regardless of the reason I never allowed anyone to love me.

One night, sitting on the steps outside of the team’s apartment, I shivered in the frigid air as I struggled through my thoughts in my journal. We had gone to the park that day, and I spent most of that day face painting and twisting balloons for the boys. Even though I couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying, something about the way they crowded around me, begging for my attention, struck a chord in my heart. These little boys loved me, even though they didn’t know me, and it made me realize how much more God loved me, as He chose to die for me even while I was still a sinner.

It was a simple realization really. If God is love, and I’m experiencing love here, then I’m experiencing God here. And who wouldn’t want to be where God is?

Most of the time, we go on mission trips, thinking we are going to impact someone’s world, when in reality, it is our world that is impacted.

I plan on returning to the BLC one day, and whether or not I “feel” God there, I know He is there, because of the good work that is being done, and the lives that are being changed, all because of His great love. I can’t wait to see the faces of the boys that taught me it was ok to be loved. I can’t wait to hug Ismael again, to sit in church with  Alberto again, to sketch monsters with Fernando again, to attempt to play soccer with Luis F. or practice Spanish with Johnny T. I know that they all have impacted my life, and I can only pray that maybe one day, I can return the favor.

God bless and keep you,
Kirsten L. George