heavy heart

One of our treehouse girls gave birth two months ago to a beautiful baby girl.  She was unfortunately born with a disease called Trisomy 18.  This has caused her to have very low birth weight, a collapsed diaphram, and several other complications.  She was born at right around 4 pounds and now two months later is only 5.2 pounds. For her first month of life she came home with her mom, aunties, uncle and grandpa.  She soon was unable to breathe on her own so she had to be rushed to the hospital.  She has spent the past month in the PICU with a tube in her nose forcing her to breathe.  While her mother "Dana" is only 18 she is acting wise beyond her years.  She has spent every waking moment at her bedside giving her kisses, changing her tiny diapers and giving her every bit of love she could give.  Tomorrow is the baby's two month birthday and she is being taken off of her oxygen and is expected to pass soon after.  

I went to visit today and my heart broke for Dana.  I am not sure why she was chosen to get pregnant at 17, give birth to this beautiful baby girl and then have her taken away 2 months later.  It's funny because Dana is acting so grown up about all of this.  She told me today that God can take better care of her baby than she can, so she just has to give her back.  She thinks her baby was brought here to teach her what unconditional love looks like and she is so thankful for that. Dana told me she cherishes each and every second she gets with her daughter.  To keep her child alive at this point would mean surgery after surgery with no guarantee that she would not die on the operation table.  Dana does not want to put her through that. It has been hard enough watching her struggle to breathe for these past two months. 

Most babies diagnosed with Trisomy 18 do not even make it to birth and the ones who do, don't often make it to one year old.  Dana believes her baby girl is a fighter, but she knows she must now let go of her.  She is worried about going back to life without the newest love of her life.  I can't even imagine going home to her bedroom with her baby's crib, clothes, blankets and stuffed animals, .. but not her child. Please pray with me that she continues to look to God for her strength as tomorrow approaches.  Pray that her family surrounds her tomorrow with all the love she deserves and that they can be a support to her in this awful time. Last but not least pray for her child, that God would take her comfortably and embrace her tiny soul. 

Thank you for reading this and praying with me. 

I'll try to keep you updated. 

The Triple Tube!

I just got back from a week at the lake with our kids and it was a BLAST!  Some of these youth had never been in a boat before let alone been tubing or knee boarding.  It was so great to just see their faces when they partook in these activities! 

This whole week we were teaching them about proverbs 3:5-6 "trust in the Lord with all of your heart, lean not on your own understandings. in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." 

For some of them they have never heard that verse before, and for a couple others, they could recite it by heart. But either way we just talked about the paths they are taking and having them think about whether or not they are on the path that leads to destruction or the path that leads them to God.  In our group of 12 we had kids that have been abused, a girl who has an eating disorder, a youth who is a sex addict, and several that use alcohol and/or drugs to cope.  Most of them are heading down a pretty destructive path. Also among them is a boy who does not want to believe in God. 

On the last night's talk I looked around and found him missing. So I went inside and had one of the best talks I've had in a long time. He has tons of questions about grace and the devil and why people get to go to heaven when they lead such crappy lives, etc... He told me the only reason he believes in God is because he can see the work of the devil. 

That just speaks to the dark places that some of these youth are in.  Now this is a boy who has been coming to TreeHouse for almost two years now and is such a wonderful kid.  He has a sweet heart and is always there to listen to anyone who needs an ear.  He is struggling in his own personal path of hating himself, cutting and using drugs.  

Please join with me in praying for this young man. Pray that he can stand up to his ways of coping (i.e. cutting, anger, drugs) and pray that he learns to lean on God.  

Tour De Scandia

no we did not take our bikes and go through the town of Scandia, but we DID take our 12 passenger van and rock the borders of Scandia! 

Vanessa our intern and I took 7 girls to my home town of Scandia this past weekend and we had a BLAST! We got to my parents house and my mom had the pizza stuff ready for us to make our own pizzas right away! After we chowed down on the pizza's we all got on our swim suits and headed down to Big Marine Lake for a dip.  Yes we did wait 30 minutes before we got into the water! The night was so beautiful, I could not have asked for a better sunset.  The girls did some head stands, chicken fights and drawing in the sand. 

Then we headed back to my parents house for a fire, some smores and a night hike.  For the night hike we decided to blindfold everyone (except me) and the girls had to hold the hand of the girl in front of them as well as behind them and learn to trust AND to lead.  I had a flash light of course, but at any rate, I took them through my very hilly and interesting yard.  There were a couple of giggles and a couple of falls.  Once we had made it the perimeter of our yard I took them to the way front of the yard and lay them down to look up at the stars.  Many of these girls have never really star gazed in their life because they have spent most of their time in the city.  Once they were all laying down I told them they could take off their blind folds, and all was silent.  Maybe a minute later one of the girls just said, "wow." 

Then we talked about what it was like to have to trust the person in front of you to warn you of a hole or root by squeezing your hand.  And what it was like to know that the person behind you is depending on you for that squeeze!  We talked about how the Lord leads each of us through our lives and sometimes we feel like we are blind folded.  We don't know the outcome of our lives, but God does.  Also along the way in life we may trip and fall, and God does not necessarily stop that from happening, but He is always there.  Right next to you.  

We read some scripture about how God placed each star in the sky and knows each one by name.  I asked the girls to count as many stars as they could, and of course they just made up a number.  We talked about how all of those stars are millions of miles away and that even though the universe is HUGE, it still has a limit somewhere out there.  But the second part of the scripture that we read said something about how the knowledge of the Lord is LIMITLESS.  So as far as you can see is no where near the amount of knowledge and love and compassion that God has for each and every one of these girls.  

Many of them had not thought of God in that way and had some great things to say.  Basically we had a wonderful time star gazing.  

Then we all stood up and picked out our favorite star, put our arms straight out and kept our eyes on that one star as we spun and spun until we all fell over.  My favorite game, star spinning.  I only did it once myself, but some of the girls did it 3 times. uck. I would have barfed. 

Anyways, the next day we sent out on Tour De Scandia where we visited each and every  one of the life sized dolla horses in Scandia as well as visited my Pastor Jillene.  While we were visiting with PrJ one of my girls said, Hey, would you baptize me? 

This did not surprise me because the last time I worked at TreeHouse we had planned on getting her baptized but never had the chance to, and so 7.31 was the perfect date for her! My pastor was a bit stunned, but was so gracious and excited to do it.  SO she robed up and we headed up to the sanctuary where she preformed a beautiful baptism and all of the rest of the girls watched.  I was her sponsor and it was so amazing to look at where she has come from in her life, to the past two years that I have known her up until that day.  I was so proud because this is truly a girl who is running after the heart of God and I am just so blessed to know her. I can see her becoming one of our treehouse leaders in this next year.  

Anyways, here are some pictures of our adventures.  Enjoy!

My heart aches

My afternoon went as follows:

I picked up one of my girls who has been on my careload since I started as an intern at treehouse two years ago.  I have been through many ups and downs with her and seen her grow up, as well as seen her child grow up.  So as usual we loaded up the car seat and headed off to Burger King (what she craved while she was pregnant!)  As I sat and watched her interact with her son I couldn't help but think about all she has been through in her life.  She looks for love in all the wrong places.  All I want is for her to see how much the Lord loves her and that she is worthy of a love that will blow her socks off.  She portrays herself as an object and then gets her heart broken when the guys she dates only want her for her body.  She is such a wonderful girl but thinks of herself as nothing.  

I asked her what about being single makes her scared and she told me, "Nothing, I'm just afraid when I am single that I will sleep with multiple guys at a time.. at least when I have a boyfriend I'm only with one guy." 

However, that has lead her to 18 years of pure hell and heart ache. I told her she does not deserve to be treated like that and she didn't agree. She said this is the only way she will every find someone to love her. 

This coming from a girl who has had two miscarriages, one abortion and a child. Her heart has been broken and shattered so many times that it is hard for me to see her whole again.  I pray that the Lord of All would come down and kiss the wounds on her heart. That she would find worth in God and not in men.  That she would see herself as worthy of the kind of love she was made for. 

please pray with me. 

Here I go, Here I go, Here I go AGAIN.

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog. I have never really kept a blog before so be patient with me! I am starting this just to keep you all updated on what is happening in the lives of my teens as well as in my own life. 

I have officially been back at TreeHouse for about a month and a half now and it has been great.  I have seen many of the girls whom I worked with last year that have basically grown into women. It is so great to witness them growing up.  Now that I am back I have almost a completely new care load of girls which has been great and hard at the same time.  

While I miss some of the girls I used to meet with, I know they are being taken care of by my co-worker Tami.  Also that means that I get to meet with a whole bunch of new girls and I love them already.  Some of the girls are harder than the others, but all of them are just struggling and I want to be there for them and help lead them to the Lord. 

I have entitled my blog "the long defeat" because that is the name of one of my favorite sara groves songs.  The lyrics of the song can say it so much better than I could ever!

"I have joined the long defeat 
that falling set in motion 
all my strength and energy 
are raindrops in the ocean 

so conditioned for the win 
to share in victor's stories 
but in the place of ambition's din 
I've heard of other glories 

I pray for an idea 
and a way I cannot see 
It's too heavy to carry 
and impossible to leave 

I can't just fight when I think I'll win 
that's the end of all belief 
and nothing has provoked it more 
than a possible defeat 

I pray for an idea 
and a way I cannot see 
It's too heavy to carry 
and impossible to leave 

We walk a while we sit and rest 
we lay it on the altar 
I won't pretend to know what's next 
but what I have I've offered 

I pray for a vision 
and a way I cannot see 
It's too heavy to carry 
and impossible to leave 

I pray for inspiration 
and a way I cannot see 
It's too heavy to carry 
and impossible to leave" sara groves