The Meaning of Connect

No matter what book I pick up, read, or hear right now always has to do with relationships.  The truth of the matter is that all of our lives are run on the basis of relationships.  We all desire them.  We all need them.  But relationship seem to be there very thing that we are not any good at keeping.  We struggle to find the right balance of how much to give away and how much to hold close to the chest.  Should I be my real self or just play a role that everyone wants me to play.  The truth is relationships are not that hard to have if you are willing to be honest and trust worthy. 

On the agenda for today was swimming with the girls from the house of hope.  You should have seen us walking 3 block hike to the hotel where we were going to swim for the day.  There was about 25 of us and everyone wanted to know what we were all doing walking down the back streets of Haiti.  When we got to the pool all the girls jumped right in and team was close behind.  This is a treat for the girls and not something that they do often or together.  It was a blast for everyone.

The most important thing I noticed was the difference in the girls and the team when we got back to the orphanage.  You would have thought that we had know each other forever.  The girls were wanting  me to color and jump rope with them.  They wanted to help us as we were cleaning up and taking out the trash.  (You have to remember some of them are less than 5 years old and were abused or abandoned.  This is a big deal.)  The truth is they want relationships too.  Someone they can trust and look up to.  Someone that will hold them when they hurt themselves and need a hand.  

At dinner one of the workers came and got Paul and Kate and said that one of the girls had fallen and then they called for Mittie, the nurse!  This wasn't sounding good.  So we postponed dinner to find that one of the girls had rolled out of bed and hit her head and was bleeding like crazy.  After Mittie got her cleaned up we realized it was just a scrape with a lot of blood.  But you would have thought that Mittie and that little girl spoke the same language as she comforted her and told her she was going to be alright.  It was a beautiful sight to say the least.  

When you understand that God is a relational god, it helps to understand the need we all have for strong relationships.  Open up to someone today and let that relationship go a little deeper and you will see the joys of sharing life with others.