The Homecoming

It's been a long awaited day, the arrival of our middle daughter Bonnie home from 5 months in Guatemala. We bought the biggest balloon we could find to welcome her home, and filled the house with beautiful summer flowers. Our house is brighter when Bonnie is in it, she brings such joy to all of us.

Bonnie went to YWAM, which stands for Youth with a Mission, in Gutatemala as a pre-requisite for her next training: to become a midwife for 3rd world countries. This combines all of Bonnie's passions: the poor, other cultures and mothers and babies.

She loved Guatemala. She loved the people, the culture and the experience of living in South America for the second time (she also spent a year in Ecquador as a freshman in college.) Bonnie was able to live with people from many different places: Canada, Austrailia, El Salvador and others. They did their studies both in Spanish and English, so her Spanish increased dramatically.

Bonnie is born to live in other cultures. She is at ease with people different from herself. She loves the poor and the disenfranchised. She cares about justice and involves herself in ways to bring justice.

Yesterday we met with a representative from IJM: International Justice Mission. IJM is one of the leaders in addressing human trafficking. I saw Bonnie's face light up when she spoke about some of her experiences in being a part of the solution, and most fully when we were told that sex trafficking for minors is almost non-existant now in Cambodia. Bonnie wrote a paper on that very subject in college and has committed herself to pray for freedom ever since.

I know that Bonnie is on loan to us, she has been since birth. God entrusted her to us so that we would be good stewards of her life: giving her encouragement and permission to follow her passions, even if it means to places that are at times rather disconcerting. Bill and I look forward to the next year that Bonnie will be home before she leaves for Austrailia for midwifery training, and then we will do it again: put her on the plane to a far away place to follow her passions and the very unique and specific dream that God planted within her since birth.