To protect the perpetrator, I’ll conceal the details, but suffice it to say that a couple weeks ago a rather large offense was committed by someone quite small (in stature, that is).

When I abruptly came into the know about said offense on the cusp of getting all six kids squeaky clean and presentable to go to Darwin’s sister’s house for a birthday party (which is a gargantuan task, especially for poopy-pants Josue who always walks around chewing his shirt, thus consistently and dexterously leaving a perfect slobber-ring around his collar), I told Darwin, “The other kids can pile in the truckbed [an acceptable practice in Honduras], so that so-and-so is alone with us in the cab. You drive, because I want to be able to swivel around in my seat to look into the perp’s eyes as we make the 45-minute drive.”

And so it went, and our hearts became heavy as our small, bright-eyed passenger failed to confess her crime in the 15-minute window we gave her during the drive down the gravel road from our home to the main highway. “Think long and hard, and tell us if there’s anything you’ve done, said or written that you know you shouldn’t have that you want to confess. Now’s your chance, because once we reach the highway, we’re going to bring something up if you don’t.”

Nothing was confessed even after several gentle (and very obvious) promptings on my part, so as the tires rolled onto the highway’s asphalt, thus closing the window of opportunity for confession, I took the evidence out of my backpack and addressed the now-wide-eyed assailant head-on.

Although many times we are deeply grieved when it seems as though our children have not ‘caught-on’ to our teachings about always telling the truth, not writing love notes to boys, and not touching things that aren’t theirs, one thing they have learned from us that they faithfully put into practice is making eye-contact with the adult who is speaking to them.

Her unbroken eye contact with me for 45 minutes as we jossled down the pothole-riddled highway was what enabled the following lesson to be delivered, and it might be what saved her from being dealt an even bigger butt-chewing.

God teaches me many things daily, and one of the biggest lessons I am learning right now is how to be an effective channel. Many times I open my mouth without the slightest idea of what will come out, trusting that He will form my words and that they’ll make a lot more sense than any idea I could have meticulously planned out myself.

So I opened my mouth, and out came a long, intricate talk about the Great Umbrella-Shield, something I myself had only briefly heard of once before from our mentor and did not entirely understand until the words flowing out of my mouth ordered themselves one after the other, painting the most logical and true of mental images.

Our unbroken stares matched one another, hers an odd combination of genuine humility and unexpected but not defiant confidence, mine a God-infused compassionate wisdom overriding feelings of devastation, anger and bewilderment.

“Your dad, Aunt Jenae, myself [and I name about a half-dozen other loving Christian adults in her life] have been placed by God to form a sort of great umbrella-shield over and around you,” I say, widening my fingers on both hands and meshing them together loosely to show how our lives come together, even overlapping each other, to form a protective casing above and around her.

It is obvious that she follows, so I continue. “Since you are not yet ready to go out on your own, take care of yourself, have a full-time job or get married, God has placed us in your life to guide, protect and love you. Forming this big umbrella-like shield, we protect you, and we are accountable before God to do so. It is our job to guide and discipline you according the God’s word and to teach you the correct path.”

She’s with me, and I’m encouraged, “If you stay under our umbrella-like protection that all of us form over you – which you can also think of as a roof – you are safe and snug.” Hand motions are my ally, and I think they help all of us understand the issue at hand much clearer.

“But it’s your choice whether you stay under our protection or if you choose to wander out from under it, thus prematurely making yourself responsible before God for your own life.”

We continue rumbling down the 2-lane highway lined on either side with palm trees, vividly green plant overgrowth of all types and brightly colored homes. “If you decide to disobey what we have told you – for example, if we tell you not to lie, and you choose to lie, you are removing yourself from under our protection and wandering off to play with Satan. It’s that serious, and it’s that dangerous. If we tell you, according to what we know of God’s Word and His will for your life, that you should not have sex until you are in a life-long, committed marriage relationship with one man, bound to him legally, and you decide not to obey, choosing to go ahead and do as you please with your body, you are removing yourself from under the umbrella-shield that we form around you, and stepping out intentionally into Satan’s territory, in essence saying that you know better than we do what’s best for you. At that point we are no longer responsible for your decision because it blatantly goes against what we told you to do.”

I suddenly get very serious, my soft, even tone changing abruptly. Her eyebrows shot up ever so slightly as she noticed the change in tone, “I don’t want you to ever forget this. Do not forget this next week, or in five years. Do not ever forget this.”

“Someday I will stand before God and give account of everything I did, said, etc. He’ll ask me, ‘And what did you do with so-and-so under your care?’ and I’ll answer, ‘I guided her as best I could according to your Word, and I loved her dearly.’ If God asks me, ‘And that time when she lied?’ I’ll be able to answer honestly, ‘That was her choice. She disobeyed. She left our umbrella.’ At the end of everything, your dad and I are responsible to God for how we love and guide you, but we’re not responsible for your choices. You are.”

And that’s about how the conversation went that first time during that fateful car ride and then a couple times since. Our little one has lost a mountain of privileges and freedoms for quite some time to come, not only for the crime itself but for concealing it when given the opportunity to confess.

A few days ago, a couple weeks after the big confrontation, as I sat sweating under the intense Honduran sun on a blue plastic stool behind our home, washing the laundry that had been waiting for me a week-and-a-half, my mind came into sharp focus amidst wandering thoughts about another one of our little ones who tends to wander out from under our loving protection: Christ Himself is our great Umbrella-Shield. When we trust and obey, there we are, safe and snug, protected. He knows what is best for us and wants the best for us, and as little children unto their parents, it is merely our task to believe Him and submit ourselves to His guidance and wisdom over our lives. But when we lash out in disobedience – arrogantly thinking that we know better than God what is best for us, we relinquish that protection and blessing – freedom, even, and we set out to play tag with the Devil.

As my soapy arms plunged in and out of the big plastic bucket in front of me, a little ball of sweat beading up on the tip of my nose, I felt deeply content, but at the same time deeply saddened that, even knowing these truths on some level, so many of us dash out or slowly drift away, forsaking our Great Refuge, the One and Only Great Umbrella-Shield for a counterfeit freedom that only produces pain and death.

The human being is a wily creature, slow to change and stubborn in its dark ways. Tends to hide. Emotionally unstable. Prone to feel lonely even if surrounded by love. Oftentimes deceived by confused thoughts. Loves what will hurt it. Prefers captivity to freedom. Chooses the wrong path even when surrounded by wise counsel. Capable of demise in any instant. Easily distracted. More fragile than a dandelion. Prone to quickly forget Truth.

I thank God that I am reminded of this each and every day on the front lines of this battle field that takes place in my own living room, front lawn, during kitchen clean-up and on road trips. Sometimes when we are surrounded by polished, polite people who have grown up in a good educational system we tend to forget the very — oh, very, very! – real struggle between Good and Evil in every single one of us that rages on all day every day. We are fooled into thinking that everything is “okay,” that everyone is “okay.”

The human race is not okay, and until we are awakened to that fact we cannot understand our need for a Representative before the Perfect, Just God. We just think I will try harder next time. Or They’re not ‘okay’, but I am.

If many people have a tornado of sin, shame, secrets and sadness raging on in the inside, hidden from everyone else but themselves, our home is full of tornados on the outside. We have given up: here there is no faking that everything is okay.

We are sin-sick, ailing, deceived, lonely, dangerous, and we admit it. Oh, yes, there are beautiful sparks of Light, Joy, Truth, Triumph, Thanksgiving — and they are so sweet! But between those glorious moments takes place the most intense of battles whether we’re suited up and well hydrated or not.

She stole again? Why does she look me in the face, smiling, if we both know she’s lying? Lord, protect us from those who come only to deceive and divide! How on earth did she receive such an inappropriate love letter from him – she doesn’t even have breasts yet and still plays with teddy bears! Just confess already! Lord, forgive me for disciplining him with such anger rather than with firm, gentle wisdom. Our son had that, that and that happen to him when he was just a little boy?! What do you mean our eleven-year-old daughter used to watch pornography with her six-year-old SPECIAL NEEDS brother on her mom’s cell phone? What are you hiding in your dresser drawer? She stole food from the kitchen again? Ok, who’s lying this time? We can’t trust any of you! Forgive me, Lord, for my anxiousness; I trust you will provide. She’s really bawling and saying that we don’t love her after all we’ve done? Lord, grant peace over our home and in our hearts!

If anyone needs a wake-up call about the true state of humanity laid bare, come visit our home. You’ll be reminded quite quickly. Our home seems to be a magnet for spiritual battles and layings-bare of all kinds. If other people can pretend they don’t lie, cheat and steal or that they aren’t deeply wounded, on the verge of self-destructing – or if they think worry, bitterness and impatience are ‘acceptable’ sins, personality types even – here there is no pretending. It’s more like a giant clashing of Good versus Evil several times a day. A bit hard on the nerves, but at least we’re in tune with reality.

One thing the Lord is teaching me over and over again – about every 12-15 minutes, in fact — is that raising/parenting/guiding children who have sprung from someone else’s womb and been through a tumbler of some of the most damaging experiences the World has to offer is a lot like full-contact wrestling with a never-say-die beast that doesn’t care if you’re exhausted or in need of a water break.

But actually, that same battle rages on in every corner of society. Sometimes it just happens to be more visible in a struggling third world country like Honduras with a catastrophically high murder rate than in an affluent society with a fairly dependable criminal justice system that knows where to hide its trash.

In our daily life here we see mothers who turn to prostitution in order to feed their kids. Young men who kill for sport — and don’t go to prison. People who cut through chain-link fences just to steal a pair of used girls’ tennis shoes. Divine rescues made only to then be put to the constant test by the forces of darkness. Twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls who have ‘married’ adult men and have their babies. Confused young men who rob Darwin and I at knife point while we’re on a date in the park. Mothers feeding Coca-Cola in baby bottles to their infants. Young girls receiving rape-threats from her neighbors who happen to be gang members. Preteens who weep for fear of sleeping in their own bed. Lives that quite literally hang in the balance between Life and Death.

But it’s more than that – the tremendous forces that are working inside of our environment and kids are also at work in me. In you. My struggle is just more hidden because I know how to behave in public and our 10-year-old daughter doesn’t. You’ve been taught how to be politically correct, independent, self-reliant, to neatly re-name your sins but our 14-year-old son hasn’t. My sins are the ‘acceptable’ ones whereas hers are the loud, screaming kinds. Here we know who the prostitutes and drug lords are; in wealthier countries there is a thicker layer of fog, deception. What’s the difference between a middle-class extramarital love affair and a mom who lets her kids watch pornography? It’s all sin. We’re all condemned.

As I am put in the role to discipline, correct, and guide untrained, hurting kids hour after hour, I become more aware of my own need for Someone to do that for me. To discipline the rebel in me, to tame the never-say-die beast that surges up time and again. I cannot rebuke the little girl pouting in front of me for her overwhelming laziness or impatience or harsh tone without at least questioning whether I am guilty of the same. When I am shocked that our child lied again, I can choose to sweep past my own inner liar, pushing her to one side and letting her keep wreaking her quiet havoc, covering her up with some pious excuse, or I can confront her just as I confronted the dishonest child in the schoolroom. Humble myself and ask for forgiveness just as I expect he will do with his sibling. Ask God to cleanse me of the darkness that still roams in my heart just as I advise my daughter to do.

In this home of screamers and criers and liars and thieves we are scrappers, clinging desperately to faith in a God who will have mercy on us because of our earnest belief in the life, death and resurrection of His Son. The details and transformations are worked out with time and not without great struggle, but our day-to-day battle is very much just that: a battle of cosmic proportions, of choosing Freedom in Christ rather than staying in bondage to Fear, of pleading God to work in and through us in spite of ourselves rather than adopting the futile “I-think-I-can, I-think-I-can” attitude of self-reliance, of being confronted relentlessly with the choice to love or to hate, to forgive or to stay bitter, to choose the way of Christ or the way of the World, to choose to believe God and accept that we are loved or to live miserably believing the lie that we’re not. To obey God or obey the never-say-die beast within each of us.

A few days ago our 14-year-old son Brayan, who joined our family last February, said to us as we all sat talking around the small wooden table in our living room during an informal family meeting, “I was talking with [a guy friend my age] while we were at the river the other day and I told him that if I hadn’t met y’all, who knows what would have become of me. I might have become a murderer.”

I stared at him, momentarily swept up in one of those rare, precious moments of getting to see a glimpse of the fruits of your labor. Darwin responded, “Brayan, it’s Christ. Meeting us is not what has changed your life; it’s Christ.” With that Brayan smiled, recognizing that in Pa and Ma there are just as many mistakes, sins, and struggles as there are in his young life, although they take on different form. It is not we who have saved him or saved anybody; it is the Saver of Men who has come to live within us who reaches out with tendrils of light into the dark heart of this world.

Christ within us is the hope of Glory. And nothing else.