I was asked the other day what I had learned from this year and of course I was on camera and totally froze because there is just too much. Like the past blog, there are many things that I have learned about myself but it is taking more time to process what I have learned about the world.
We’ve had lots of tours of the place here recently with Americans visiting and that puts me in a place to translate and talk about the start of the organization and where it is now. Sometimes its a routine and I just go through the motions and not even thinking about what I am translating. But when I went running (where I process most of my thoughts) I was hit with the magnitude of the work New Hope does. The generations that are shifting. The doors being opened.
Not until the other day when I found myself just digesting it all. Giving life to the words that I translate almost each week. Sitting in it all. I then took a trip to the original house on the hill to remind myself of who these girls are and the magnitude of it all. There’s something about going back to the beginning to see what all you have been through and where you are today. I love to see that in these girls. Even the time that I have been here, I have watched attitudes change, newness for life happen, fullness in who they are come about. It is one thing to look back at how far you have come yourself but to look back at someone’s life that means so much to you and show them how far they have come and their identity remaining that beautiful soul throughout it all is something else. Some of these girls feel like my little nieces, some of them feel like my daughters, some my sisters.
The other day I was placed as a translator in a healing session with one of the girls. I was asked to read who she was in God’s eyes off of verses given to me. I read one by one the verses. One after another, my voice becoming softer as I looked into her eyes…knowing her story took me back to the beginning with her and each word read over her, she took and walked with it. She does it better than anyone I know, she believes in herself. She is a leader, not a follower. She paves her way but she paves her way with her story knowing her true identity within it. As I read these truths over her, tears dripped onto our knees. She is not afraid, she is bold. New Hope didn’t make her these things, those were already in her, but what New Hope does is help her see it and help her believe it.
The magnitude of where I work is something that I will always be processing and will always struggle to fully articulate but I am forever better for it.
Amor,
Jess
