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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: FRESH START (01/05/17)
No Way!

“Just turn and run!” the voice screamed. I wanted to listen to it, but my feet slowly moved forward. With each step forward on the hot, dusty ground, my heart beat faster and the voice screamed louder! The monstrous, gray building loomed in front of me as if to swallow me up if I dare enter. One more step and then I stopped. By now my heart had moved up to my throat, I was sure of it. The thought of entering the building sent my head spinning! I really should just listen to the screaming voice and run! Run the opposite direction! No way could I do this! No way could I take on the task set before me!
The gentleman stepped aside to allow me to enter first. Holding onto the doorframe to steady my shaking body, I moved forward slowly. My mind reeled with uncertainty and terror and yet curiosity won over.
The further in I went the more I was certain I had just entered a crazy maze. The gentleman explained what each unpainted room would become upon completion. Did I agree with it or was there anything I wanted him to change? I could only shake my head in silence for fear my words would be a mumble jumble of words that displayed my emotional turmoil. I was glad he spoke mostly Spanish and I did not. Good excuse for the silence.
By the time we entered the unfinished living room, the voice stopped screaming and the turmoil gradually subsided. “I could put bean bag chairs in that area for a reading corner,” mentally making a note in my mind, “and maybe a huge stuffed animal the children could sit on and read to.”
Continuing on with the tour of the two-story concrete building that would eventually hold a large number of children, the gentle whisper of the Lord assured me He would give me all the strength I would need for this new, life changing task set before my husband and I. I wanted so much to believe it.
Left alone to wander through the building again, I stood in front of a window looking out to the bare, dusty backyard. My imagination stepped forward and showed me children chasing each other, laughing as they ran and others gently pushing the younger ones on the swings. Happy and loved. Glad for a place to call home where they are accepted just as they are.
My next “stop? The large bedroom on the first floor. Boys. They would come with a heavy suitcase of baggage. “Baggage” of rejection, of lost hope, of life without love. There would be lots of them. Would I be able to be the “mom” they would need me to be? To laugh with them and join in with the many, sure-to-come pillow fights and then gather them lovingly in my arms and tell them of Jesus’ love for them? The equally large bedroom on the second floor would be a place with little dolls and nail polish and giggles for all the different aged girls the Lord would bring to us.
I stepped out the front door and joined my husband and young adult children who had been waiting patiently while I took my much needed self tour of the unfinished orphanage. I had made a final decision. I would accept the request, along with my husband, to come and be a mom and dad to the orphan children. Looking at the monstrous building once again, I envisioned ways to make it inviting, adding fresh coats of paint and flowers and sandboxes. It would be a place where the children, once homeless and uncared for, could make a fresh start ~ a fresh start at the orphanage we would rename to “The Big Family Home of Hope”!

True Story!
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This article has been read 433 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Trudy Newell
01/13/17
Excellent. You had my attention the whole way. This should do very well as an entry. I think it's a winner!

Thanks for sharing from your heart. Many times God asks us to do things that are beyond us - just so He can prove to us just how big a God He is.

Every blessing - Trudy
C D Swanson 
01/14/17
Beautiful!

A powerfully engaging story full of conviction and emotions surging to an amazing message at the close.

Well done.

God bless~
Larry Whittington
01/19/17
Quite and undertaking and commitment.

Well written with emotion oozing. Now I would like to read of a day or a week with the children all participating.