Eduardo...

This sweet little guy is my buddy Eduardo. Found this picture on another blog from this summer and copied and pasted it. Some of you have heard my Eduardo story but he stole my heart last summer as we were on the mountain where he lives. The family house had burned to the ground and so a TORCH team had gone up there to build them a new house. We didn't just build it, we painted it, we built bunk beds, it was awesome! In the midst of this my heart connected with Eduardo. It's so amazing to see how that happens there, you don't plan it, you didn't pick "one" out, but it's as if "one" finds you anyway. So Eduardo was mine. He held my hand the entire day. We sat on the dirt floor of this house and sang songs to one another. It was just an amazing day. As we were getting ready to leave and Terry told me we had to go everything in me wanted to stay. Eduardo walked me all the way down this very long lane holding my hand with a really sad look on his face. I hugged him when we got to the car and he wouldn't let go and with tears running down my cheeks I got in the vehicle thinking he'd turn away. He didn't, he climbed up on the running board along the side of the Rodeo and put his little face up against the window and was saying something through the window. I turned to my friend Jen to ask her what he was saying and with tears now streaming down her face she said, "He said when will you come back I'm going to miss you so much." WOW...one day to spend together and a heart touched for forever by a little boy's heart.

I share all this today to ask for your prayers. The village where Eduardo and his family live is getting extremely violent with various gang related crimes and just a lot of ick. Some of my very good friends have pretty much adopted this family and reference them as their Honduran family and while they were over there this summer made arrangments to move the mother and her three boys to a safer village if she would do it. She said that right now she doesn't want to move...it's all she's ever known and there are huge fears there that if she moves somewhere else she won't be able to continue to provide for her children and she is very involved with the church there and so all of the people she knows and loves are there. It's a difficult situation, but in the meantime her sons are growing rebellious and are getting into some things that could potentially be very very bad and so she's got a really tough decision to make. Her boys need out of there. It's possible that they could move to Santa Ana, the village where we will be living, and that would delight my heart. We are praying for whatever is best for them however.

I'm petitioning your prayers for this sweet family. The offer is there, she only needs to say yes. Pray that God will show her the dangers in saying no and will quiet her fears and allow her to trust Him to take care of her somewhere else.

In the meantime will you please pray that God will protect my sweet Eduardo's heart and that he would grow up to be a giant for Jesus regardless of what goes on around him. Thanks as always!!