"Dress A Girl Around The World"

Last night I had the plessure of spending time with the women's mission team from Lakewood. This is the team that I am a part of that I will be serving with for my first week in Guatemala.

We have been brainstorming, praying, and networking for the past few months; trying to find how God wants us to serve while in Guatemala.

We came upon the Hope 4 Women International's "Dress a Girl Around the World" campaign. People from all over form clubs that sew pillow case dresses to distribute around the world. Teams and partners hand carry these dresses to countries throughout the world! To date they have delivered 23,000 dresses to 36 countries. The women who created this organization care about women... and imagined a world where every little girl owned at least one dress.
This may sound ridiculous to some people but for those of us who understand what it means to a little girl to feel beautiful (a desire placed in her heart by God) and special, it means the world.
We contacted the organization and they joyful agreed to contribute to our trip! They sent us almost 500 dresses yesterday! We spent a few hours last night stuffing the dresses; on each dress is a little pocket that comes with a baby doll!
The dolls are so adorable! (I never had pillow cases this cute)! We will distribute these to the children who live in the landfill in Guatemala City. These little girls that will receive these dresses literally have nothing.... their families feed them with scraps of food they find in the landfill. The first year I went to Guatemala and visited these children, they all had on Lakewood t-shirts. I asked one of the adults where they had gotten them (thinking that it was recently) and she informed me that they were a gift from the mission team the PREVIOUS year. These children have nothing. Maybe one or two outfits. They are covered with dirt, have unhealthy gold coverings on their cavities (which are painful and the metal makes them sick), they have nowhere to sleep... a four year old child asked me to pray for God to forgive her because she had stolen food to help feed her younger (yes, she's only 4) siblings when they couldn't find their mother for a few days.
These dresses will mean something to them.

Every time I think of these children, my first thought is the look in their eyes as they sing songs of praise joyfully and loudly. Each morning, they walk from the landfill to the preschool. Starving and tired, they do not run to the rooms for breakfast.. but start each and every morning with songs about how wonderful, loving, and great God is. These children who according to our standards, have literally nothing.
As young as four year old, babies, these children understand what it means to truly have everything when the world thinks you have nothing. These preschoolers are thankful solely on the fact that they have God, and he is more than enough.

God is more than enough.

Isaiah 55 says it all.
This is what it said to me:
-Why do you think you'll find satisfaction in money... look at celebrities, they aren't happy! There's no satisfaction in anything of this world unless it is from God... the world will leave you empty. Turn your back on the world, to to Him and surrender... your soul will delight in a a beautiful affair.

HERE is a LINK to the website for the Dress around the world campaign
http://www.dressagirlaroundtheworld.com/

I'll post pictures of the little girls who get the dresses in Guatemala!