Announcement

After weeks of thinking through names and verses and praying over our coming project, I am excited to present to you…

Puerta de Esperanza
”Door of Hope”

(credit to Krissie who has a gift for naming things and a love of the book of Hosea)

Hosea 2:14-20

Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.

“In that day,” declares the LORD, “you will call me ‘my husband’; you will no longer call me ‘my master.  I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked.  In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the creatures that move along the ground.

Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety.  I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion.  I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the LORD.

As we have been planning for this project I have come back to the story of Hosea over and over again.  I love the picture of the Lord pursuing us, alluring us, speaking tenderly to us, and restoring us by the power of His great love.  He brings us close to Him as a husband would His wife and He reminds us of His righteousness, justice, compassion, and faithfulness.

This is my prayer for these girls… that this home would be a safe place for them and that the Lord would pursue them here.  I pray that they will meet Jesus in a very real way and know Him intimately.  Only in Jesus do we have hope, only in Him do we see real change happen on a heart level.  I am praying that He will break cycles and allow these girls to turn around and teach there children what it means to walk with Jesus and the hope that is found in Him alone.

Please pray.  There is so much to be done and it will be hard.  Gomer ran back to her old life time and time again.  It was comfortable and familiar and all she had ever known.  I know those temptations and I have fallen to them.  Its not going to be an easy road that we will walk.  But we trust that Jesus goes before us in all things.