Yeah, I know, I'm blogging a lot this week...

And I have another couple posts half-written to go up later. But, this is about linking to someone else, I didn't even write this one!

Several of my sweet friends in the States have made it clear I'm invited to share what I'm seeing and hearing with them, even the angst, even the hard stuff (love you roommates, and lots of others too). This means more than I can say. But, I don't want to yet. I can't put some of this stuff into words in an email. I will, I promise, but right now, I just don't want to. I figure that saying "I'm working with teenage girls who were physically and sexually abused" gives a pretty good idea, and some of the stories... I just don't want to yet. Besides, how do I tell the stories when you don't get to see their faces, hear them laugh, play volleyball with them and cuddle with them watching a movie? I'm in this torn place where sometimes I DO want to, sometimes I want to shout their stories to the kind woman chatting with me in a taxi cab who asks me what I do here, to put them in every email to everyone I know who will listen. I want the horrors of it to be known. But I need to think about the fact that whoever's listening is going to have to go on with their day, and unlike me, they don't have the privilege of making these stories, their day.

And even more than that... I don't want my girls to just become horror statistics, labels, faceless tragedies. Because they're SO not. How do I tell these stories in a way that lets you understand how beautiful they are? How much healing and joy they really have experienced? That God does have a plan for them, that He is carrying it out and there is goodness in their lives? That really... they are normal girls? I can't stand to not tell the stories, and I can't stand to tell them, because neither gives the full picture. Someday I'll sit with some of you and I'll tell the stories, and we will all cry. And then I'll show you their pictures and some of the movies we've taken, of all of us sitting around the lunch table and laughing as we eat our soup, or doing a dance to some "reggaetón". And hopefully the horror will seem real in a way that moves us all to pray, but the beauty and normalcy of these girls will seem even realer in a way that makes us praise.

Wow... ok... never mind... I guess I did have something to say. (That was all one big stream-of-consciousness...) So much for Ingrid, I guess I'm back to angst... :-)

BUT, the reason I originally started to post was because the lovely and amazing Christine, one of my best friends and my future roommate, just wrote a beautiful post on her current HNGR experience working with domestically abused women in Peru. She did dare to tell some of the stories, and it really captures both the horror and the joy, in the way I wish I could. So I wanted to link to her to give you all more of a glimpse into some of the things I can't write about, yet.

So go read :-) thanks for putting up with me, friends. Love and miss you all...