Days Spent Dreaming

I love that our center is called The Dream Center. Dreaming is so intertwined with what we are doing.  I dream a ton, our team dreams and not just at night. We spend days dreaming for our kids. Looking at them, praying over them and asking God what he says about them. He says incredible things. I play with giants every week and each day they become more and more free.

When people ask my role I tend to think social worker or program development. Those are the technical terms I have in my head. Years of training that tell me in clear, jargon filled lines that I do something straight forward. Ha. This center looks nothing like a program or outreach. Each week I am humbled to see just how God is building it into a family. Yes, that was the goal, but I never knew how that would really look. Well now I'm getting to see these dreams come true. He is creating this family that hangs out on mats having snack, making jokes, laughing and dancing. I am overwhelmed at how many moments in the middle of nothing technical our staff sit or play along side our kids and there is so much peace, safety and joy. Kids free to be kids. Our team taking delight in these children.

One of my dreams for the center was that we as a team would be incredible models of serventhood to our kids. I wanted to see our staff take delight in taking care of these kids who all to often take care of themselves and those younger. My Dad would call it "restoring childhoods!" Our staff are incredible, Khmer and foreign! They respond in love, patients and joy over and over again. In the beginning we planed even the smallest details of the center including what the kids will drink out of eg. water bottles, washable cups, plastic cups, etc. Our rule, we never expect our kids to do anything our staff do not model. So for weeks we all washed cups, so many cups! And then all of a sudden there was a precious boy at the sink washing cups. He finished and happily ran back to re-join a game. No one asked him to, no one was even around, he just followed suite.

We still wash a ton of cups but every now and then I turn around and there is a child at the sink happily taking part in family life that he is invited into. I am reminded that nothing we do goes unseen. We have the privilege of getting closer and closer to Jesus so that in what we model for are kids Jesus becomes more and more tangible. Jesus is crashing in, in much bigger ways then clean cups but somehow it is these small things that I see great victory. I see these kids become sons and daughters and the orphan spirit falling away and they carry themselves as ones who belong.

These changes have happened so quick. They are not the result of programs or counseling. Changes I can not take credit for or explain outside of the direct work of our God who is calling out to his children. I am remind that this is His dream come true. His idea, His location, His children and this is how He chose to come to them. And His ways are always better, no matter what. He is our program. He is our plan. He is our dream come to life.