Hello! My name is Sarah Finnie and I am interning with Stepping Forward Ministries during this fall. I am a senior at Gordon College in Boston, MA and hope to continue to work with children on the mission field when I graduate. Below are some thoughts from my first few weeks of visiting one of the orphanages in Bucharest.

I don't speak Romanian. Sometimes I even question my ability to speak English when I'm especially tired.

But I've been learning a few things about how to communicate with and love children well even if you don't speak the language.

Little ones are the easiest to connect with. Smiles, hugs and thumbs up when someone does a good job always make sense. Teenagers are harder. You want so badly to be able to have a conversation with them but settle for hand gestures and laughs when you don't understand.

I think that all kids, but especially ones that come from difficult backgrounds or grow up in orphanages just want to be noticed. They want that connection with another person. That's why smiles and hugs make such a difference- because through simple actions you are saying to them:

You are loved. You are important. I see you.

But most of all, God sees them.

"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" Matthew 6:26

He knows the heart of every child in Romania and in the world. God knows the hurts that they have experienced and he cares more than we could ever imagine.

"Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation."

Psalm 68:5

My greatest hope when working with kids is that a child is able to experience the love of God through me. What an incredible blessing it is to be used by God. The fact that he desires to include us in the story of redeeming the brokenness in this world will forever leave me in awe.

-Sarah Finnie