I ♥ Faces: Celebrating Teens!

This week's theme at iheartfaces.com is Celebrating Teens. I was so excited to see that teens are being recognized in the upcoming weeks, because I turn 20 this August, and have really enjoyed my years as a teen. Because I'm currently a teen, I have lots of pictures of teens (yay for having photogenic friends!) so picking a shot was difficult until I remembered my photo with one very special teen.

In November of 2008, I went to Pignon, Haiti for the first time on a mission trip. While there, I met a girl four years younger than me, but who knew so much more how this world works. Meet Lissy, who was 14 at the time of this photo (I am18 here). I met her while visiting a local orphanage where she had been living for a little less than 2 years, since she was rescued from a life as a child slave. This girl was barely a teen and had gone through more in her life than most of the adults I know, but somehow she still never stopped smiling. 

The composition of this photo was a complete accident. I went to take our picture in stereotypical teen style (camera held out, hoping to get everyone in the shot) and didn't realize that my camera was still zoomed in from the last picture. Yay for getting a lucky shot!