day 11

Earlier today I emailed an orphanage in Puerto Rico asking if they could use me as a year-long volunteer starting early 2011. And also today, they emailed back:

Dear Emily,

Blessings from Roblealto!

Thank you so much for your email and for your interest in giving us a helping hand. Volunteers are a very important part of our ministry and they are welcome all year through. We have had volunteers for even more than a year, so it is an option in our programs.

The first step will be for you to fill out the application attached. Please send it back to me as soon as you have it ready so we will have enough time to coordinate your time in Roblealto.

About your lodging question, individual volunteers can stay in one of our homes. At our shelter we have 8 homes, with 10 children in each, foster parents and their biological children. The mothers love to have volunteers with them as they need a lot of assistance. I think this will be a perfect position for you since you like to work with kids and help in whatever you can. Volunteers give a $20 offering per day; in your case I think we can evaluate the time of your stay to come up with an offering that won’t be overwhelming since you are coming by yourself.

Once again, thank you for considering Roblealto within your plans. May the Lord guide every step of the way during the coordination process.

I feel overwhealmed by just how perfect this all seems to be. I mean, the Roblealto Child Care Association is a mission which works primarily with kids, and in the last couple of months I've been working a lot with kids and realizing I love it and don't ever want to stop. Today and Yesterday I've been kind of bonkers with this Puerto Rico thing, but I'm trying to stay objective and consider all my options. I just never really expected the first place I tried to be so receptive and to actually want to hear back from me, to work with me like this.

Whatever I end up doing, I'm trying to make myself realize that this is going to be one of the hardest things I've ever done. Learning the language, traveling alone, being isolated from all my friends and family, culture shock, harsh weather conditions, huge bugs, a lot of hard work. It's going to take an incredible amount of self-dicipline, a quality that I've only recently begun to develop in miniscule proportions. Honestly, I'm not even sure I can handle devoting myself to studdying another language for the next few months. I'm anxious to see if I can stand up to all this, and wondering how on earth I can become strong enough spiritually to rely on Him instead of my own strength.

If you want to check out Roblealto, go here.