{"id":5567,"date":"2019-06-17T07:19:36","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T15:19:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.touchalifekids.org\/?p=5567"},"modified":"2019-06-17T07:19:36","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T15:19:36","slug":"my-heart-felt-at-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/touchalifekids.org\/my-heart-felt-at-home\/","title":{"rendered":"My Heart Felt At Home"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-5563 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/touchalifekids.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/kristin-blog-banner.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"220\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Where do I begin?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were made to be part of a great adventure. One that is SHARED. We want it not merely for adventures sake but what it requires of us FOR others.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Art plays a huge role in my life and is a constant thread in my own story. Three years ago it led me straight to my current job as a kindergarten teacher and to my friend, Nan Deal. As our friendship grew, she shared stories of her son, Connor Lee Deal, his passing, their grief, and the creation of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.touchalifekids.org\/arthealing\/connorcreative\/\">Connor Creative Art Center<\/a> in Ghana. In an effort to understand my sweet friends grief on a deeper level, I devoured Pam Cope\u2019s book, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.touchalifekids.org\/jantsens-gift\/\"><em>Jantsen\u2019s Gift<\/em><\/a>, and I was hooked. I wanted to go, serve alongside my friend in honor of her beautiful boy and wrap my arms around those kids.<\/p>\n<p>So, the question is \u2013 how can you condense a Grand Canyon type experience into a 500 word or less blog post? The answer is \u2013 you can\u2019t.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-5572 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/touchalifekids.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/My-Heart-Felt-At-Home4-e1560787482180-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I do know that the Lord wants us to DREAM big, which was our art theme for the week. I think when we DREAM, it is like a love letter to HIM (Proverbs 16:3).<\/p>\n<p>When I saw the art center on the horizon and pulled onto the care center campus, the children ran to our van to greet us. I realized immediately this place was sacred ground. These children, with the brightest smiles you have ever seen, welcomed these <em><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Oburoni\">oburonis<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>with open arms. These were the children I had seen in flyers, on information packets and on social media, in the flesh. The stories I had heard and read about, now had living, breathing souls; and they were right in front of me. It was the real deal.<\/p>\n<p>I would spend the next 7 days with these children; painting, coloring, drawing, teaching them old recess games I played in elementary school, sharing treats, and just being with them. My favorite times were when I would answer their funny questions and when they would share their stories. Because, at the end of the day, we all just really want to be seen and heard.<\/p>\n<p>Around day 3, Nan looked at me said, \u201cI don\u2019t think you are going home. How am I going to get you on the plane?\u201d It was unexplainable. My heart felt at home, among these children who had indescribable joy but had suffered unimaginable trauma.<\/p>\n<p>Do you know what happened? They actually rescued and restored me. How could that be? Here I was pridefully thinking, I\u2019m headed across the world in an attempt to serve and heal others and &#8230;the opposite happened! In the words of Pam, \u201cmaybe the answer to grief or feeling lost is to give and love recklessly and passionately; and so I did. I made a decision to love them recklessly and passionately. During those 7 days, my heart was split wide open. It will never be the same.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-5570\" src=\"https:\/\/touchalifekids.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/My-Heart-Felt-At-Home2-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/>As we drove away for the last time, I felt the Lord\u2019s comfort and peace because I know my work there is not finished. I know upon my return to the US, it\u2019s time to hit the ground running and allow the Lord to lead me to the next thing, be it raising money for a fence for the campus, a new vehicle for David&#8230; whatever. I am open and ready. Lord, I am yours because these children are your children, created in your image. Use me.<\/p>\n<p>We have a marked race and CANNOT miss it because of fear. I encourage you, reader, to risk something. Something big. A BIG DREAM. We serve such a BIG GOD, which requires our dreams and hopes to be just as big.<\/p>\n<p>To the children who now hold a piece of my heart in Ghana:\u00a0Until I see you next summer God\u2019s precious ones, I love you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Kristin<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Visit <a href=\"https:\/\/TouchALifeKids.org\/Give\">TouchALifeKids.org\/Give<\/a> to find out more about how you can make a difference in the lives of these children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Where do I begin? \u201cWe were made to be part of a great adventure. One that is SHARED. We want it not merely for adventures sake but what it requires of us FOR others.\u201d Art plays a huge role in my life and is a constant thread in my own story. Three years ago it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>My Heart Felt At Home - Touch A Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/touchalifekids.org\/my-heart-felt-at-home\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"My Heart Felt At Home - Touch A Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Where do I begin? \u201cWe were made to be part of a great adventure. 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