Girl Power: such amazing girls to have spent this entire week with. We all got a little closer and learned a little more about each other. These girls welcomed me in as though I was one of their roomies. I'm so excited to see where God takes each of these women over the years.

Day 7
It's our second to last day today. I just started my morning as I have since we got here: wake at 6:30, get coffee, read today's devotional and letter, then enjoy about 20 minutes of quiet time before everyone (other than Matt) wakes up.


It's a great way to start the day here mainly because it's beautiful in the morning here - the sun is rising, revealing the most beautiful peak to the volcano we can see from the house, as well as the birds are all chirping. I always hear random footsteps around as people who work at the school or in the admin offices here at Common Hope start to arrive. There's always a smell of stuff burning in the distance (not like the building's on fire, more like when you're camping and you always smell a fire), then in the quiet I usually hear a backfire of a car passing by.
It's so quiet and peaceful. I think about back home what my mornings look like: usually waking a few minutes before Gabbie and rushing around to get things done. No quiet time. Definitely no time to read God's word or reflect on the day before and the day ahead. I'd like to keep up this new habit {and feeling uber convicted that as I re-type this journal entry, remembering those sweet times and that I've already slipped back into my busy life}. Doesn't it seem like the perfect way to start a perfect day?

I was going up the hill yesterday for about the 30th time (I tried to keep count again) and realized what a boring , mundane task we had been doing. I realized how physically challenging our work had been, especially given that I never do this kind of stuff at home. {feel free to chime in and tell me if you spend your days hauling dirt by wheelbarrow to help build a road}. I was thankful for a strong work ethic. Proud of pushing myself through these days and thinking it must be all that experience from playing sports, pushing myself in practice or during a tournament when we were on our 5th game for the day when it was 110 degrees on the field.
It wasn't until this morning that I realized how self-centered that thought process was and how much it is like so many other times when we think we're giving God the glory, looking to Him for our strength but in all actuality we have those little thoughts that we did it on our own accord. It's not until we stop and look back on what was accomplished that we realize it was God's power THROUGH us.

Think about how much power that is!! WOW It's enough power to bring you to your knees with hands rands high in utter surrender to our powerful God.
We limit the possibilities of God's power because we limit what we think God is capable of doing through us.
In us.
By us.
My prayer today is that I can continually be aware of God's power and presence in my life to do exceeding, abundantly, above all else. (Eph 3:20)

side note: ironically this morning we saw black puffs of smoke come out of the top of the volcano outside of our house (you can kind of see it in a few of the above pictures. We haven't seen any activity throughout the whole week. This is the same day that the terrible tragedy happened in Japan. None of us became aware of the Japan tragedy until later in the day on Friday when we stopped in a restaurant to use their restrooms and saw the messages come across the TV. Not sure if it was related, but hard to think it wasn't. Thankfully we were never in danger of the earthquake/tsunami affects while in Guatemala.