Road Jes Traveled

Team time is an intentional time each day that we spend to deepen our relationship with our team. Each day's activities vary from deep talks to fun games and everything in between. In today's team time we each shared a song that has been on our mind lately. I love music so much so I was excited to get started. As each song played, I jotted down a few lyrics that stood out to me. I didn't separate by song so all of it is mushed together into one big paragraph. The result is beautiful and my team encouraged me to publish it. So here it is - a big, mixed up, chaotic, beautiful mess. Death was arrested and my life began. Free! Free! Forever we're free! There's freedom in surrender. Lay it down and let it go. I'm painting beauty with the ashes. You're not alone. Stop holding on and just be held. I once was lost but now am found. Take this life and lay it down at the foot of the cross. Without your love I would be lost. Hallelujah love has won. Like the beauty ...

There’s a woman who is staying in the house with us. She cooks, cleans, reads her Bible, and you can very rarely find her doing anything else. No one seemed to know her name or anything about her. But we noticed her right away and see her more often than we do our host. When we began to speak to her, she seemed shocked that we expressed so much interest in her. After about a week of small talk and conversations in broken Spanish, she warmed up to us. We began inviting her to join us in meals and prayer. I invited her to sit with us at Church and asked if she could teach us how to cook and to make our favorite – café con leche. Each time we extended invitations to her, she lit up with joy and happily accepted. When she enters a room she often says "Jessica!" because for some reason mine is the only name she's learned. She told us how sometimes she hears God and once she felt Him wrap His arms around her. She’s a faithful, Godly woman. She’s the type of woman with a soft b...