I want to quickly share with you how this trip changed my heart, my mind, and my soul.

Before I left, I was a complete mess. My family life was way screwed up- two weeks before the trip, my Mom had a stroke. Dad works in Denver still, so he couldn’t take care of my little sister and I during the day. I had to be the mom, and ’parenting’ a hurting and confused eight year old when you’re only fifteen was hard.

My spiritual life was downhill. I was struggling with depression and not knowing who I am, and I had such resentment built up inside. I didn’t belong anywhere. No one understood. I was a different person at church than during the week. I never read my bible or prayed anymore. I knew about God in my mind, but rejected him in my heart. Often I talked to my best friend, Emily, about how it felt like I was pretending all the time. I never knew who I really was.

Leaving for two weeks was the hardest thing to do, ever. I had to leave behind my little sister and my dad to fend for themselves, and as a perfectionist and a control freak I wanted to be there to do everything for them.

But finally I had to get on that bus, and step onto that air plane, and get off in Natal, Brazil.

That first week in Brazil was the scariest, most amazing thing that has happened to me in fifteen years. I never expected to be loved so completely and openly, and be able to love back without any thought to the fact that I would, eventually, have to say goodbye.

It didn’t hit me until that Saturday - the end of the first week- that I would have to leave these people. Leave behind their smiles. Leave behind their relationships. Leave behind their kindness, and generosity, and their hugs. It felt like the roof of the church had caved down on my head.

I was depressed the whole day, and lashed out because of it. I think that day was the worst I had behaved on the trip. I did some things very blatantly, and when I got talked to I just got angry. It felt as if I was starting the cycle all over again- hurt, then fear, then getting really angry.

Earlier in the week, God had shown me that I was using him as a vending machine. I would go to get something from him, then forget about him until I needed something else. I was living as though I had all the time in the world, and when I was finished with living the way I wanted to, I could live God‘s way.

That Saturday night I realized how wrong treating God like that was, and I should stop it. Basically there were two options- Reject God completely, or Accept Him fully.

I decided to reject him. I was hurting so bad and didn’t feel as if I could love anyone anymore, it felt so awful.

I came to this decision in the middle of the Church Dedication Service, and tried to slip away three times without success. Finally I couldn’t hold it in any longer, and I just started to cry. Tears were pouring out of me, and I couldn’t stop them.

That’s when Marconi found me. He hugged me tightly and prayed for me, then told me he would always love me and called me his daughter. Which made me cry even harder, considering I had just told God ‘hell no’.

I went to bed that night empty and confused, and woke up not much better. I silently cried myself to sleep for the next two nights.

I think it was our last official day in Carnuba. Tomorrow we were leaving to go back to Natal for a few days, then hop a plane to America. We climbed the mountain right outside of town with some of our Brazilian friends to look out over the city for the last time.

As I stood there, watching the sunset, my family away from home surrounding me, my hand being gripped by David and another little boy, and thinking over my past week, I just felt something happen to me.

It was as if a force was filling me, pushing out all the bitterness and resentfulness and depression with peace. I started to realize how big God was, and how beautiful his creation was. I started to understand how much time and effort he had put into making the world amazing. And as we walked back down, I had a thought- God did all this for ME. Not just for his enjoyment and pleasure. The plants and animals didn’t sin. And God could have just loved them, the perfect ones.

But he loves ME, messed up, unbelieving little me.

I felt so small. And so okay with that feeling.

Slowly, ever so slowly, God worked in me during the next week. And finally, when I prayed, it meant something. I could actually give all my crap to God and feel peace about it. And I could love even more for it all.

I’m different now. I’m not alone anymore. As I was looking back over the trip, I realized that God had placed some verses in front of me that describe my trip completely.

MARK 9:24 B “I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief!”

JOHN 16:23-24 “In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask for in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will become complete.”

PSALM 100:1-3 “Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness, come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his- we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”

HOSEA 14:9 “Who is wise? He will realize these things. Who is discerning? He will understand them. The ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble.”

ROMANS 12:1-2 “Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is- his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

ACTS 1:8 “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

AMEN!