How it all started......

Two years ago, when I was thirteen, I took a trip that changed the way I viewed the world. Before my trip, I was just a normal teenager living a normal, American life. The only life I knew was one of comfort. Of course I had heard the stories of the children on the streets and in the orphanages, but none of it seemed real to me until then.

In May of 2007 I traveled with my family to China to adopt my little sister. I had the chance to hold children who had once been on the edge of death, see kids who were beggars on the street, and to witness the lifestyle of people in a country where 15 million children have no family to call their own. It changed my life. Perhaps it seems hard to believe that some one's life can change all within a day, that their perception of the world can almost suddenly become one that you never expected them to have, but one look into the face of a precious child with no mommy or daddy makes all those stories you've heard become a reality.

I can't describe the feeling of that one day I spent at the foster home. I couldn't grasp how in the world anyone could stand to give these children up, and my heart broke for their birth mothers who couldn't take care of them. All of them were special needs children, but when I looked at them I could only see them the way Jesus saw them, they were beautiful. Each and every one of them had so much to give the world and one look into their bright eyes would melt your heart. I left the foster home that day with a purpose for my life that now, almost two years later is still my strongest passion.

Looking back on that trip now, I still marvel at the mark it left on my life. Ever since then, my heart has been in a constant state of brokenness for these children everywhere. Exactly one month after I returned from my trip to China, I left again to travel to the Dominican Republic where I spent two weeks working with impoverished children living in the dumps. Poverty became more real to me on that trip than it had even in China. These children lived in homes smaller than my own room made out of scrap metal from the dumps they lived in. After that trip I never took hot showers, air conditioning, or even a real home to live in for granted ever again.

For two years God has broken my heart for these children. He has used the adoptions of my sisters to help me learn how close the helpless are to his heart, and to reveal His plans for MY future as well. I am only fifteen years old and yet I know He has great plans to use me to reach His precious children with His love. I started this blog to record my journey to El Salvador this June, and for the trips I look forward to taking in the future. I pray future posts (especially from the trips) will help you to see the invisible, hear the silent, and remember the forgotten. If you want to follow my journey I would be honored to have you do so.
Blessings,
Hannah