I'm well into the final team of the year now - just one more week with Team 4 and then I have 4 days before I too am flying home to sunny England (or not, as I've heard!)! ;-P And as we go to some of the projects and do some of the things that I've been doing and going to all summer, I'm becoming increasingly aware that that was the last time. The last time I'll walk into that village and be greeted by small children with loud voices shouting, "Rebekah! REBEKAH!" The last time I'll sit around having beautiful conversations with friends I've made here and feel like I've known forever. The last time I'll dance and sing praises to God with the most joyful men who have come through so much. The last time I'll pick up that one little friend who is ALWAYS happy to see me and ALWAYS wants a hug! Even the last time I'll traipse around at the top of the mountain making sure the team are keeping up and not tripping over oddly arranged steps! I say 'last time' in the sense of it being, at least, the last time for the time being, but as the song I'm currently listening to on my Rend Collective Spotify playlist says; "[God's] not finished with me yet!", and I certainly am not claiming to know the future!
So for now, it is the last time. Yesterday I went to Nazareth House for the last time. We played and we danced - I cuddled and I laughed. And I saw again how incredible Sister Mercedes is. How perfectly humble she is and how beautifully understated. I've been working on a side project to raise awareness about the current situation for Nazareth House and so in my time between teams I went back and was taking photos and stuff, so that I could make some publicity material and then I could show that to her to get her permission to use it. As most parents are, she's very protective of her children and doesn't want their photos to end up just anywhere and so not many people have photos of the kids there; so if I can make some materials that she is happy with, other people can then use those to share the story and situation of the house! So anyway, I needed a photo of her and originally she was like, "Nooo, nooo" all embarrassedly, and then she dragged Claire in too, so it wasn't just her, and Claire finally managed to get her to have one on her own; and she is beautiful. But she NEVER wants it to be about her. To the degree that if we give her the comfortable chair, she'll drag it aside and find one of the kids toys (a MOST uncomfortable seat!) to sit on! Whenever she tells her story, she wants it completely to point to God - not to anything incredible that she might have done, but all the incredible things that God has done through her. Claire has previously called Sister Mercedes her 'hero of the faith', and I'd never really understood having a 'hero of the faith', but now I so do. I endeavour to follow her example - her humility, her obedience, her pure faith in God - she is a beautiful, strong daughter of the King. And after all this, she made it about me. She told me how she was sad to see me go and told me not to forget them. I told her I was going to stay in contact, I was going to write to find out how she is and how the children are - and she was overjoyed! And I said, 'no I won't forget. I'll be praying, and I'm going to go back and tell everyone about you and I'm going to raise some money to help...' And she interrupted me; 'the most important thing is that you pray. Pray for us. And remember us.' Such beautiful, wonderful faith. --------------- [1] Photo credit for the sunset: Tim Hendy.
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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