It has been 131 days since we returned from the Philippines.
I wrote that sentence and tears welled up in my eyes. Partly because sometimes it seemed like it never even happened. Partly because most of the time it it has such a grip on my heart that I can’t think of anything else.
Images of the children we spent time with flash through my head all day long. I find myself scrolling back through my photo albums on Facebook just so that I can make sure I don’t forget the details. I have debated several times going and getting these pictures blown up and framed so that I can hang them on my wall, just so their faces won’t fade in my mind:
It’s hard because I know they probably don’t remember us. I know that to them, we were probably just 2 more people who walked into their lives, gave them some hope, and walked out again. To them, we’re just 2 more people who disappeared.
They have no idea that I think of them constantly, that we’re praying for them all the time, that at some point almost every day I think about how I wish I was sitting with them on a railroad track in the middle of a squatter village rather than sitting here.
I have this fear of waking up one day and realizing that I have forgotten…. forgotten their faces, their hugs, their excitement, their need for Jesus. Forgotten to pray.
I hope that after 131 more days or 131 more years, I will remember. But I know that if I don’t, I have a God who does. He remembers. He knows those children. And He isn’t one that just disappears.
