Anita is 17. She lives in Spain, where I lived a few years ago. With her family she goes down to Sahara every year to visit the refugee camps and bring humanitarian aid. This is an excerpt of the letter she sent me
Every year it gets better. It´s so amazing! It makes you look forward to your next trip with excitement, knowing you will encounter many wonderful opportunities, open doors, miracles that the Lord does and so much more.
Sahara really is a magical place, and the people are even more so. I admire each and every one of them for their love, spirit of giving, endurance, positiveness, faith, and sacrifice.The people there are an incredible sample, to all who visit them. Everyone who arrives at the refugee camps just wants to go back; they need to go back. I think it is because they come in contact with something that you cannot find too easily: pure love. These people are blessed by God. You can feel it! Their spirit, the way the live and interact with each other. Sometimes you feel like you just cannot get enough of them. They carry so much peace. It is wonderful to be around them.
I feel very blessed to have met the people from the refugee camps in Sahara and to be able to go on these trips. Even though I would have loved to stay there longer, I am very thankful for the time that I spent there. I really enjoy doing clown shows for the children. Seeing them happy and laugh is a wonderful experience. Your heart goes out to them and you feel like doing more and giving more & more to them, because they really do deserve it. I am glad that we were able to do all the shows that we did. All the schools we went to really enjoyed it and asked us to come back next year.
Singing at the cultural program that was taking place in "February 27th Refugee Camp" was something unexpected and exciting for us, as well as performing with a Saharaui group, which made me feel closer to them. It was amazing how the Lord led us to sing on TV, five songs that touch touched people`s lives. Those five songs that were about love, freedom and happiness! It was incredible to see how each of those songs really applied to them. It was wonderful to see how the Lord really does have everything under control, even though sometimes we don’t see it that way.
Now I am here, back in Spain, and all I wish for is to go back--back to those people I am now in love with, or perhaps is God´s love through me. I will be patient and wait for next year, trusting and knowing that even though I left them for some time, God didn’t, and He never will. He loves them and will always provide for their needs and be by their side, whatever may happen. He will never turn His back on them and knowing that calms my spirit, knowing that, as hard as it may sound, He does love them even more than I do, and they are in the best care in the world.
So now, all I can do is pray for them and trust God, and wait for the day that I can return and live with them 3 weeks. All we can do now is continue to trust God, and to give love away so that He can in return refill us with His new and pure love, so that we can once again give it to His children that need it.
Viva Sahara libre!!!!
Anita dressed in the traditional attire