So I'm back from the mission trip. Things have been insane lately. It makes me just want to leave again. What I would love is to go back to Wamblee. I just want to hang out with those kids all day. I'm beginning to love kids more and more as I work with them. It reminds me of the beauty of a blank piece of paper. There are SO many possibilities and great beautiful things can become of them.


Anyway, I went to South Dakota thinking I knew what to expect. What I thought I was going to see, I did see, but there's something about actually seeing it for yourself that makes it so real. I can see it in something other than a picture. I saw their neighborhood and my heart just broke. I wanted to go in and take them all back home with me and take care of them. But I knew I couldn't. I knew all I could do was support these kids and encourage them. Give them truth. And maybe someday, if we keep this up, they'll help to better their own community. So on the way back to camp I cried. I cried because I wanted to pull these kids out of their horrible living situations and bring them home with me. I knew that I couldn't though, for many reasons. I can't just make everything better, but I could help.

If there is anything I learned that week it was that you can't force love on someone. Now, I loved all of these kids and I've been missing them like crazy since we left, but most of them can't understand that, so we have to slowly show them how much they are loved by us through and because of God. This is something that they can't really grasp when they're so young and when most of them don't even know what love is or even what God is. I'm convinced that just going back over and over again is the best way to help them at least begin to understand some of those things and encourage them to read into it more and really try to understand.

While I was a Wamblee I met some really great kids. First and foremost, Sequoia, not because she was my favorite, or because I think she's better than any of the other kids, because those things aren't true. I just got pretty attached to her. She was a sweet little girl. She had a good heart, too. Which was cool to see in a kid so young. Anyways she liked to wear make up :p The last day I got to see her she was wearing purple eyeshadow. She has 10 siblings and seemed to have a good family for the most part. She told me how much she didn't like living in Wamblee. She talked about Rapid City like it was some great city far far away that she would dream about and loved to go there, but I think she just saw it as a better place than Wamblee. It would be a cool way to help her understand Heaven. Heaven, like Rapid City... a better place. :p But yeah she was special to me. I wrote her a letter the other day with a picture in it. I can only hope that it was the right address and that it's is going to get to her and she'll write back soon.

Then there is Karly. At first she come off as kind of snobby and stubborn. A real "give me this give me that" type of girl. But as the week went on and I grew closer to her and all the other kids, I realized that she's grown up in an environment where there wasn't much to be had and no one really had much. She was stubborn because you can't really trust anyone there. People beat up people left and right. People get raped and mugged. Their houses get robbed and vandalized. Usually family is the only people you can trust, but most of the family structures are really messed up. Anyways, Karly just takes a while to warm up to you, but it's worth it in the end. She's a very loving kid, and to share love with her and be loved by her is so special.

Then there's Kendra. Kendra is very cheerful. I'm pretty sure she was the happiest kid I met. She loved to have fun and she loved to mess around with people. She was really cute though and could get away with anything. She was the one who painted my entire face blue. There's a very memorable picture of her smiling face in my memory. She was really awesome.

Then there's Penelope. I didn't get to talk to her much because she was very shy at first as were her sisters Ambreya and Stormy. However when I did talk to her she was very sweet and innocent. She was quite the cool kid. When she wrote her name, she wrote every letter backwards... which is just awesome. Then of course there's Alicia, Jakayla, Emily, Amber, Serina, Winter, Sun Dance, Chaylyn, Cheyanne, Ben, Moto, Spring, Angel, Autumn, and many more kids that I didn't get to know as well as I wished, but am looking forward to seeing them hopefully this Winter or next Summer.

Anyway the trip really put the spring back in my step and helped me get up on my feet again. Since the trip, all I've wanted is to go back. I miss those kids so much it's been all I can think about.

But I will end my blog now.

Everyone have a fantastic fourth of July.