Post Grad Update :)

For updates sake and because I wanted to write like 16 posts since this, but this needed to come first. I've written like 3 drafts of this and I'm over trying to process it all and write it all out.

Long story short. Walked away from Vanguard post my freshmen year, handed my whole life/future/plans to God. Sophomore year in Fresno found me battling insomnia and mopping floors at 2 a.m. and praying for older kids in the system that had nowhere to go and opening a fund for adoption. Moved to Texas because I felt A&M was the school that could grow me best as a complete person and develop me as an individual. Watched God provide miraculously every single semester and worked 2+ jobs throughout the rest of college to not acquire any more debt. Almost moved into Bryan (sketchy neighboring town) to do inner city ministry and have a safe house for kids in one of the most poverty stricken neighborhoods. Watched the Lord speak a bunch of promises and answer a bunch of prayers in making it all fall together. Promptly watching Him squash 9 months worth of planning in a week. Then I watched my community I was heading into Bryan with, who pushed me towards Jesus most and knew me best, fall apart along with the plans. Spent my senior year loving on freshmen girls in my bible study and just trying to make it and trust the Lord when I knew nothing but wrecked plans and wrecked back up plans and a broken heart (those suck).

And then I had another job opportunity post grad come about in Dallas where some of my closest married friends lived. Paid to lead bible studies and mission trips for high schoolers. And then management changed and six months of job security turned into "we're heading in a new direction" and a jobless Hannah. I didn't need answers. I just needed confirmation that the Lord was indeed moving. That He was planning and orchestrating things I couldn't see that were His perfect plans because all I knew was a year plus of my own, that He seemed completely about, ruined. Not just ruined, but orchestrated by Him to fall together and then fall apart.

I prayed for a word. I walked into a house that same day and read Hudson Taylor's quote written in handwriting on a calendar saying, "If his future had been opened to him, he would have seen that his future life's work hinged on this very setback."I felt life breathe back into me for the first time in months after reading that. Okay.

A week later I got a phone call from the girls I almost moved into Bryan with a year earlier and hadn't heard from since. They were calling to see if I was interested in working with them that summer at a safe home they helped run for girls removed from sex-trafficking situations. Financially I had zero idea of how to make it happen, I'd just wrecked a car, had to be looking for a teaching job in the fall, and make enough money to pay bills. In the next week I got a car offered to me for summer for free, a lease swap cutting rent in half, a random meeting with the non-profit directors where we talked for an hour and a half and they introduced me to the principal who hired me.

Three years of praying. Three years of a quiet little voice pushing me through college to get my degree, get it without more debt, and to fight for kids that had no where to go and were older. Watching last year fall apart and crushing my own strength, ability, and community with it which handed me incredibly valuable lessons were all for this.

I am a 22 year old graduate of Texas A&M who got handed their dream job straight out of college. I am a relief house parent and summer school teacher and high school English teacher at Still Creek Ranch in Bryan, TX.

AKA I work on a beautiful ranch 20 minutes outside of town and spend my summer days with teenage girls who have been removed from abusive or trafficking situations and need a safe place to go. There are two boys homes, two girls homes, and we broke ground on the third girls home two weeks ago. I teach summer school to help get the girls up to grade level three hours a day and help the house parent's or relief house parent the rest of the time. In August I will begin teaching all four grades of high school English at the Christian high school for both resident and community kids and I will be building their English curriculum and helping it hit state standards, ensuring college to be a viable possibility for these kids as well as relief parenting two days a week.

I LOVE my job. I love it because it is something the Lord has been working in my heart for years. I love it because it is completely orchestrated and is the answer to every prayer I've prayed about this for years. I love my job because I am COMPLETELY beyond my own ability. I have zero idea how to teach, I haven't even taken education courses, just a content exam saying I know what I should know to be qualified. I have no idea how to develop a curriculum. I sure as heck have no idea how to parent kids, let alone teenagers from insanely difficult pasts who are wounded deeper than any human should ever know. BUT God. That is really it. But, God. I am insanely underqualified for my job. Yet He orchestrated it all. And these are His kids. And He is the best teacher and best parent and He is inside of me. I lean fully. And when I do, I watch grace fill in the gaps. And when I don't I watch the reality of "The Spirit gives life and the flesh profits nothing" take place. And I pray and I watch grace move again.

I love my job. I would love to adopt 14 girls. I am a complete scrub at what I'm doing and I know Jesus better every single day. And I am exhausted most of the time. I've had a girl rip a ceiling fan out and shred the couches, I've been locked out of the house by my kids, I've had one pull a kitchen knife on me, and I've prayed with girls in tears, I've hugged tightly and explained how a 40 year old man is not the boyfriend of a 12 year old and no you are not responsible, I've been able to use creative writing assignments as outlets for their stories, I've driving them to countless doctors/dentists/dance lessons/horse lessons, listened to them talk about boys and life and hurt and Jesus. I've made dinner for 23 people often. I've listened to more Demi Lovato and Justin Beiber than anyone ever should. I've cheered them on at district horse shows and helped coach volleyball. And I've cried, prayed, hated, loved, been exasperated, elated and everything in between in the last month.

Every single thing the Lord broke and pieced back together in the past year made this past month possible. I am humbled to be given care over some of His kids. I can FEEL His favor over that ranch and His supply ABUNDANT over all the needs. He is so so good. I could go on forever about the answered prayers and insanity of this past month. I love my job and I LOVE my God and I am so beyond my ability and capacity, but not His. I spend my days fighting for girls. And when I'm not with them I spend my days looking at the clock to see what they're doing right then and wondering if whoever is there is remembering to keep this girl out of the pantry and if they double checked that that girl got help washing her hair, if their favorite snacks were remembered, or if their horses did well in lessons that day, if their dinners are healthy, etc etc etc.

I'm an absolute scrub and so selfish and a kid myself. Yet He has entrusted me to help steward 14 little lives, precious to Him. And 63 this fall. I'm only 23 years old tomorrow and He has blessed me with these. I am so not able, and He is just so so good. And it is enough.

 "He is no fool who gives what He cannot keep to gain what He cannot lose."

Prayers appreciated.