Mommy who is your speical friend?

********** Warning, long post!! And pretty all over the place.*****************


Today at lunch Cy noticed a picture that was new hanging on the chalk board beside the kitchen table. It has been there for a couple of days, but today he decided to ask," Mommy who is your special friend in that picture?" I told him that her name was Carolina and she lives in Costa Rica. That is like telling him that she lives down the street and her name is Bob. He was done and satisfied with just any answer. But really Carolina deserves so much more and I have not given it to her. She deserves for me to think about her, tell my kids about her, continue to pray for her and not back down from the place of my heart that she opened for me almost 2 months ago.

Since returning from Costa Rica I have not blogged about it, I don't know what to say. It was awesome, amazing, great, and so many other things. I was crushed when I returned. I missed my friends, I missed my amazing place of peace with the Lord and I missed those sweet faces of Costa Rica. My team had 10 members from the states, but everyday we had at least 2 or 3 more friends tagging along. God's plan for our trip included these extras each day and I think the relationships we had with them was one of the most important reasons for the trip. From our guide to our bus driver, to the missionaries we met, every where we turned God instantly blessed our friendships. It was wonderful!
The kids were awesome and the 2 homes we visited couldn't have been more different. One home had kids that went to school, lived in the center of the city and yet the spirit was so sad here. The other home had kids that did not go to school and lived all alone up on a hill, but the Lord's spirit was alive and well and it was so refreshing. This was the home that stole most of our hearts.

As we first entered the second home I noticed her standing in the front walkway pushing a baby in a stroller. No one thought one thing about it, that is just what the older kids did. They helped look after the little ones. However a couple of hours later when we realized the young girl, (maybe she was 15?) supposedly 17, was nursing that baby all things changed. That is "her," Carolina's baby??? She was so different and so much in need. I was hooked.

A couple of days later we rode a boat together. She insisted I hold baby Fernando, unless we saw any creature, then she took him back so I could take a pic. I was not too concerned about 15 pictures of a blue heron, but Carolina loved looking at them on the little screen. We tried to talk, but Spanish is her 2nd language so English was NO where on her radar. Then she nursed, and nursed and nursed some more. No big deal, I am of the baby nursing age and so are all my friends. Carolina just struggled with it, and it broke my heart.

As the days went by I spent more time quietly loving on my sweet friend and her baby. I learned she had indeed already given up one previous baby and she was only staying at the orphanage so that they would not take this one away as well. She had left Panama* with her "much, much" older husband and was all alone in a country where she did not know anyone. The husband? had not seen her since she went to the hospital 7 weeks earlier to have Fernando. Carolina's story was complicated and I believe she has since left the home, with Fernando. What will happen to her I have no clue, but her sweet face and her needs will not go forgotten.

As I lay in my bed one night in C.R. I told my sweet roomie Carrie I have to do something. Something to help not just the young moms in Costa Rica but the ones in my own backyard. Someone or somewhere I read that if you don't act on your feelings within the first 2 months of being home, then they lose that grip on you. Well I have not let it go, I have emailed people, talked to people and stepped out in more ways already than I ever imagined. So stay posted to see what doors our wonderful Lord will open for me and just how in the world He will use this "boy mom" to reach out to teenage girls in Mid. Tenn and anywhere else He calls!!

I hope to continue to post pics and fun memories from my trip. This was just a good starting off point for me!


Carolina was from a indigenous group in Panama*. She like everyone else we met just made up the big "melting pot" that is Costa* Rica!