Dayana (15), Jackeline (12), Gleny (11), Josselyn (10), Jason (8), Josue (7) and Gabriela (6), Darwin and I wish you a merry Christmas and happy New Year!
“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”)… Matthew 1:23
I sense that God is calling me to take a vacation from writing and maintaining this blog until early January to allow me to focus on Darwin and our kids during this Christmas vacation time. In these last few months I feel that I have been so busy running back and forth, planning, moving and organizing offices and storage rooms, having meetings, sending in paperwork, drafting budgets and then re-drafting them, going to schools and government offices, maintaining our checkbook, creating and managing work contracts, teaching classes and Bible studies, being everyone’s chauffeur, etc, that I almost haven’t had time to really be ‘mom’ to our kids, and that needs to change. We have planned several day trips in December to see Darwin’s family and to celebrate Christmas with our faith community and other friends, and we plan on slowing down and doing the daily work of cooking, cleaning, spending time together as a family without so many distractions, tutoring our kids academically, studying God’s Word, washing our clothes by hand, etc, before everything starts back up again in January.
This week we administered our final exams in homeschool (the Honduran school year goes from February-November, so this week all 7 of our kids entered into their annual school vacation time), graduated the students who passed their grade, and are still in the midst of wrapping up a lot of loose ends as we wind down with all the newness, all the changes and challenges that have come with this year. We have 5 upcoming Christmas music recitals in nursing homes, schools, and in our home/mission in these next two weeks along with finalizing and turning in a lot of paperwork, and then we’ve planned to take a general rest as a family (Darwin and I and our 7 kids) until early January when everything starts up again.
Please pray for us during this time, that the Lord would use these 3-4 weeks in December to knit us even closer together as His family, and that Darwin and I would not fall prey to ‘doing’ so much that we forget the simply ‘be’ with our kids, love them, and pour into their lives. Please pray also for my ongoing struggle with insomnia, as in these past 9 or 10 days I have only slept 4 nights and am unable to take naps during the day. I feel exhausted in every sense of the word and am pleading that the Lord would grant me rest in Him so that I may receive new strength to fulfill the plans He has laid before us.
Thank you to everyone who supports us – in encouraging emails and letters, in prayer, or financially. We earnestly give thanks to God for you and hope that your holiday season is restful yet fruitful for God’s glory.
A couple nights after having returned from the mission to southern Honduras to install potable water and share God’s Word with a dynamic community of believers, I told Darwin and our seven kids that I wanted to be able to share with them some of what the Lord had taught me during the trip. They agreed, so after a long day we all shuffled into our almost-furnitureless living room after dinner, and I began lighting candles and setting them all over our tile floor. Our kids – several of whom are most likely undiagnosed pyromaniacs – quickly jumped in to ‘help’ with the lighting, and soon enough we had several dozen candles all over our floor as the nine of us took our seats cross-legged in an imperfect circle.
I began, not really sure of what I would say, but eager for the Lord to give me whatever words He wanted us to hear: “Does anyone have any guesses as to why we’ve lit candles instead of simply turning the lights on as usual?”
Jason, our 8-year-old, said, “Light in the darkness! Christ is the light?”
“That’s true, but that’s not the reason…Why the candles? Any other ideas?”
Darwin or our eldest daughter guessed that perhaps the number of candles represented the number of people who came to accept the Lord during our trip, but neither was that the reason.
After several more good guesses, I laughed and said, “It’s simply because in the village where we stayed, they have no electricity. Each night we were in total darkness unless someone turned on a flashlight or lit a candle. A lot of people around the world live like that.”
Each person had their Bible in hand as I began sharing of my experiences in a little mountainous town on the other side of the country where the men work all day on steep mountainsides planting and harvesting corn and beans while the women work over fire stoves to make corn tortillas out of what the men harvest. To enjoy any education after the 6th grade, I was told the villagers have to walk 2 hours down the mountain and then take a 45-minute bus to the closest high school.
As the Lord guided our discussion, we took about 10 minutes so that each person made a list of all the material blessings we as a family experience on a day-to-day basis, from beds with mattresses (rather than hammocks or sleeping on the floor) to having a simple indoor bathroom stall that is far more pleasing to use than a fly-infested outdoor pit latrine, not to mention our milking cows who enjoy our large, grassy property and don’t have to wander around roadsides looking for enough to eat.
It was amazing how each person really ‘got’ what we were writing about, and 8-year-old Jason was the first one to volunteer his list once we were winding down. His list included about 50 things like: windows (more than just a carved-out hole in the wall as many in the world have), sinks (another thing many people don’t have), his towel, his wooden dresser, the great variety of food we have (even though we eat a base of rice and beans 2-3 times per day!), among many other common items we take for granted or even complain about because we compare them with someone who has more than we do.
From there three of our daughters, Darwin, and I shared our lists, all of which were basically the same even though each person wrote theirs individually: a shower (rather than bucket-bathing in the front yard as those in the village where I was had to do), dog food (rather than feeding emaciated dogs with watered-down rice scraps or pieces of tortilla that fall from the table), our kids’ art and music classes, my computer, a car, an electric stove, basically flat roads that can be easily traversed (rather than slippery, extremely steep, rocky trails as were those of the village where I was), real shoes (not just plastic flip-flops), enough ‘extra’ to even be able to share with and bless others, more than one candle (a home I stayed at in the village had but one candle on hand, and when it melted down we were left in darkness), and so on.
From there, each person meditating on all the incredibly simple, taken-for-granted items on their list, we read Philipians 4:12-13:
“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
Suddenly, without having planned to do so, I folded up my list of abundance and held it over one of the many little flames that were around me. As my page of notebook paper caught fire, I sensed that several of our kids were exchanging glances with one another, eyes wide, like, “Cool! Mom’s burning things! … Does that mean I get to burn my list too? Whoa!”
I love moments like these, because there’s no traffic in my soul, nothing clogging up the Spirit of God or getting in the way of what the Lord might want to say or do through me. I (although it was not me at all) said, “This is our list of abundance; it is neither good nor bad. Paul says in his letter to the Phillipians that he knows what it is to live in abundance and in want, and in both situations he has discovered the secret of being content: Christ. So for right now – and we must recognize this – we are living in abundance. We may be tempted to look at those who have air conditioning or hot water or television or whatever it is that we don’t have and feel that we really don’t have much at all, but that’s simply not true. We have several toilets, paint on the walls, a refrigerator, everyone is in school, etc – but if some day all those things go away and we enter into ‘want,’ nothing really changes. If there is some world war or the economy crashes or our home catches fire and we are forced to move to a little shack with dirt floors and everything becomes really hard – who knows! – and our season of ‘abundance’ ends, nothing has really changed. All of the things on these lists can be taken away – or added to – and the Truth does not change, is not affected.”
So we burned our lists and a certain appropriate heaviness, the kind that comes with an undeniable understanding of Truth, settled over us and did not leave for several minutes.
“If the Word of God can be proclaimed and go forth in a remote, rocky village where there’s no running water, people bathe in a bucket in plain sight in their front yard, barely have enough calories to keep going and are in utter darkness once the sun sets, we do not need lightbulbs and art classes and pillow cases and doors that keep thieves out. If we are given them, fine. And if they’re taken away, fine; it’s all just abundance, and it’s not necessary for fulfilling God’s purposes or for finding ‘happiness.’ If we lose everything and are forced to hit the streets looking for a new beginning, nothing has really changed.”
From there we went to several other scriptures and meditated on the profundity of God’s love and jealousy for us, for our whole selves and our whole lives. I shared of my conviction to begin visiting homes in our own rural neighborhood perhaps a couple days per month to share God’s Word and pray with the people, and I asked who might be interested in accompanying me to do so. Everyone’s hands went up.
After closing with prayer, we blew out the candles, swept up the ash left behind by the bunt-up lists, turned on the lights with a flick of the switch, and each person went about their business to do homework, take a shower, go swing in a hammock or practice violin while that heavy, beautiful burden of understanding remained hovering over me like a weighty but welcome cloud as I prayed to God that I would never forget, or better yet that when and if the time comes that I would be able to humbly accept the Apostle Paul’s Words that ring with Truth: I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
During the first week in November I went to the department of Choluteca in southern Honduras with a dynamic group of Honduran, American, and ex-Patriat missionary believers to aid a rural village in the installation of a potable water system and to go house-to-house sharing the good news of Christ and praying with the people. Darwin held the fort down at home for the week, and everyone survived! It was truly a growing experience for all involved, and through the trip the Lord has planted the desire in my heart to begin going home-to-home with our children in our own rural neighborhood to share His Word and pray with our neighbors. (All of the photos on this post were taken during the water project).
November 1, 2015 marked our two-year anniversary with Dayana (age 15), Gleny (11) and Jason (8), the first sibling group who moved into our family roughly 4 months after my husband and I were married. It has been a mind-boggling journey deeper and deeper into God’s grace, into the riches of His understanding, and into a truly incarnate walk with Him in today’s world. Darwin and I are planning a 2-3 night trip with them to a neighboring city in December to celebrate all the Lord has done in and through us as family in these last two years, and we are looking to begin the legal adoption process in June 2016 once, by Honduran law, we have been married 3 years and are thus valid candidates for adoption. Please continue to pray for our growth and unity in the Spirit, and that the Lord would continue to prepare and equip us as a family for any good work that He may have for us.
I think I might have been the tallest kid there…
A few weeks ago I wrote about the current legal situation we are in the midst of, and I’m here to report that we were able to get everything together within a week to pay the large government fine along with our lawyer fees, and our lawyer is currently working on the case and moving it forward as quickly as possible in a system that is generally bogged-down by tragic inefficiency. Darwin and I have planned to take the 7-hour busride to the capital city of Tegucigalpa (where our lawyer lives and where the majority of the legal jinking and jiving occurs in Honduras) the second week of December to be able to talk face-to-face with her and see the progress of the case. Please continue to pray for this situation as it is not yet resolved, and that the hit to our finances will not affect the stability of the mission the Lord has entrusted to us.
After having first received children and youth from our rural neighborhood into our government-registered primary-level homeschool program roughly one year ago, the Lord recently expanded our vision to include a secondary-level section in another room of our Education Building. We currently have 7 students in primary-level (1st-6th grade), 3 of which are kids who live in our home full-time and 4 of which are neighbors of ours in extreme poverty who had not previously had the opportunity to be in a school.
The eldest of the 7 children the Lord has placed in our home as sons and daughters, Dayana, is graduating 6th grade, which is the last grade of elementary school and will be entering 7th grade, which is considered “high school” because there is no middle school in Honduras (in the Honduran system students graduate in November and re-enter in February). After discerning the options for her high school education, Darwin, Dayana and I all felt peace about continuing to educate her in our home/mission for at least the next year or two so that she can continue her musical and artistic studies along with developing the different leadership roles she is taking on.
So, Darwin and I visited the 6th-grade classrooms in two of the local public elementary schools to spread the word about the new high school we will be starting in our small town, and we’re currently weeding through the 40+ candidates, making phone calls to parents, conducting interviews, and organizing informational meetings in the hopes that God reveals between 8-10 students who will be entering into our 7th-grade program alongside of our daughter in February 2016. It is an exciting process, and thus far we have 4 spaces already filled with young teens who are already heavily involved in our weekly Bible study, in Darwin’s choir, agriculture classes, and other activities in our home/mission. Having them in our home 5 days a week, 8+ hours a day will enable us to profundisize our relationship with them and our impact on their lives for God’s glory.
The purpose of the high school is to offer a discipleship-focused alternative to the extremely crowded, low-quality public high school in our town for students who are earnestly open to and seeking to walk with Christ and know his Word, all within a family-like environment that values discipline, integral development, and creative growth. Please pray with us that the Lord would guide us in the process of discerning which/how many students should enter the program, and that this new initiative would meet a felt need for the teenagers of our town who are looking to grow in the Truth.
Just this week after a process of interviewing candidates for the position of “7th-grade teacher” we found the woman who will hold the position alongside of Darwin and I. Praise God!
We’ve purchased new desks/chairs for the incoming students along with a large dry-erase board, and in the coming weeks we will be cleaning out the storage room to prepare the space to be the 7th-grade classroom. There are many decisions to be made, schedules to be created, curriculum to be organized, meetings to be had, student contracts to be written, norms to be established, and lives to be impacted for Jesus, so we ask once again that you would pray with and for us during this time.
There are certain legal procedures that each Honduran NGO must do each year in accordance with the government’s laws in order to remain in operation.
Teresa Devlin, who founded the Living Waters Ranch, was very ill during her last few years in Honduras before passing away in October 2012, and when I arrived in June 2012 no one (not even the board of directors) informed me of all the legal processes that I would henceforth be in charge of orchestrating, much less the intricacies, time involved, etc, of such.
For that reason our annual taxes and other reports were not filed in 2011, 2012 or 2013, until last August we finally came into the know about the process and began a great rally with lawyers, accountants, old board members, etc, to compile all the necessary paperwork (which turned into a huge project and ended up being a thick binder-like report).
Well, we sent off our completed 4-year report (including 2014) to a supposedly trusted lawyer in the nearby city of La Ceiba in November 2014, and he sat on the paperwork over 11 months without doing anything. We called, stopped by his office, and even jumped through several hoops of getting different people’s signatures that he asked for, etc, and only about two weeks ago when Darwin called him for the umpteenth time to see how the case is coming along did the lawyer’s assistant admit that they had not made even the slightest move in over 11 months and that it would be better for us to come pick up all our documents and find another lawyer because they had no plans of ever addressing our case.
That is exactly what we did, and now the same female lawyer who is working on my residency case from the capital city of Tegucigalpa is moving and shaking with all our government documents that are now almost five years behind. In less than two weeks she has made more progress than the other lawyer did in 11 months, and just yesterday afternoon she called to let us know that our Honduran legal status (which is extremely difficult and expensive to get in the first place and is necessary in order to be in operation) is on the brink of being cancelled, seeing as our documents, receipts, etc, have not been presented to the government since 2010. The good news is that our legal status is not already canceled, but we now have to hustle, paying a roughly $3,000 fine that only last year would have been roughly $1,500 if our first lawyer had done his job, plus we have to now submit new documents, get new stamps and signatures, etc, to prove that we are in operation and that there has been no foul play. Basically there will be a lot of hoops to jump through in these coming weeks along with the huge fine if the Lord’s purposes are to continue at the Living Waters Ranch.
Please pray for us during this time of potential stress, and let us give thanks for our new lawyer (Tania Ruiz) who has taken great initiative to begin fixing up what has turned into a big mess. Please pray for efficiency, transparency and mercy among the lawyer(s) and government officials who will be dealing with our case, and pray that the $3,000 fine (plus the lawyer’s fees, which will end up about $1,000) does not derail us among the other operating expenses that we already incur. Thank you!
A new stream of God’s abundant provision has recently been discovered through a large supermarket chain in the nearby city of La Ceiba – after several months of writing letters and waiting for responses, we now have an agreement with one of the locations to receive any surplus/damaged goods that for various reasons they are unable to sell. In the first few months of enjoying this agreement, we got a call every 3-6 weeks to come pick up a box or two of flour and toilet paper, but for some reason in this past week they have called us twice, and so two times in three days we brought home quite literally a truckbed full of goods for free.
Every time we receive a box, I exclaim to my husband Darwin, “It’s like Christmas!” because you never know what the boxes will hold. Just last week our truckbed held two-and-a-half boxes full of chocolate cookies, a couple boxes of flour and spaghetti noodles, quite a bit of canned food, a couple bars of soap, several containers of butter, some frozen French fries, and even a brand-new frying pan!
So last Thursday as I arrived home in our truck at 3:00pm after having picked up Gleny and Jason from their elementary school, I contemplated the still-closed boxes in the truckbed with weary excitement, wanting to rip into them to see what blessing they held but struggling through an already-too-long day that started around 5:00am after another night of not having slept a wink. I felt like all my nerves stood on end and that my head weighed more than the rest of my body.
Thankfully, several people who were just about the leave and head home came to help haul the boxes up the concrete steps into our dining room, and I followed behind, scheming through foggy thoughts exactly how I could manage with the least energy exertion possible the five hooligans who would be under my care until Darwin and our two eldest girls would get home that night around 7:30pm.
On days like I had last Thursday I often wish that my children had an “off” button or that they could be easily folded up and stored away in a dresser drawer for a few hours until I need them again. Unfortunately for weary parents, this is, of course, not the case, and thus I suddenly had five eager helpers who were just as excited to see what was in the mysterious boxes as I was (and had 684.92 questions, comments, and stories for me in the process), although in the back of my mind I contemplated starting the somewhat-intimidating task of sorting, lifting, storing, etc, the next day once I had hopefully slept a few hours.
But the Lord had other plans, and I’m so glad He did.
For some reason that is still unknown to me, I did, in fact, begin the gargantuan task of inspecting the blessed cargo and, not only that, but graciously solicited the help of Jason (8), Josselyn (10) and Gleny (11), while Josue (7) and Gabriela (6) played with brooms in the front yard. We spent the next couple hours making guesses about what would be in each box, carrying certain items to the pantry, storing others in bins, etc. There was so much food that it was quickly made clear to us that it was meant to be shared, thus we began classifying the food items according to what could be most useful to which neighbor of ours. My three assistants flitted around the kitchen literally aglow with joy – how sweet it is to discover (and then share!) God’s blessing alongside of your children! We made boxes for several neighbors, my assistants constantly eager to help think out which goods should go to which families and place (and then re-place and re-organize) the goods in the boxes so that they fit just right. We talked giddily about how God never leaves the giver without something to give, and that if we have in abundance (or in scarcity!), what we have is meant to be shared. It was never ours to begin with; we are but the little administrators of God’s provision, allowing goods to flow through our hands and lives like crystalline spring water!
It was one of those blessed afternoons where everything seems to ‘click;’ all our gears are moving in synchrony and we all ‘get it.’ God’s presence among us was palpable and His joy undeniable. Gleny made a comment about how she has noticed that our town of El Pino is growing in the Lord’s favor, and Josselyn talked through a big smile of how thankful she is that God has enabled us to continue blessing others.
Well, we couldn’t stop there! I went to write “God’s blessing for Mr. Mejia” in big bold permanent marker on the outside of one of the boxes, but Gleny interrupted the simple process and informed me that she wanted to do it. Although that involved helping her spell it out correctly (and then turning the box around and starting over when she messed up), it was worth it.
The next step was handing the boxes over – delivering the blessing that was never ours to keep! We laughed and worked in teams of two to hold the boxes as we shuffled across our large front yard, out the gate, and over to the small house on our property that is now home to four of our students (all siblings) and their parents, the father of which fills the role of night watchman.
Once we finished handing the two boxes over to our watchman’s family (the father looked somewhat betwixt as to why anyone would be so giddy about giving food away), we returned home feeling light and joyful, although we were a bit sad the process of giving seemed to be temporarily over. The other boxes would stay in our kitchen because they were for people who would be coming to our home the next morning, except…Mr. Mejia! It seemed utterly ridiculous due to my off-the-charts exhaustion after the lunacy of sleeping 2-3 hours one night and none the next, and so on, but it seemed to be the only thing that made sense. Our neighbor Mr. Mejia, a man in his 70s who is a pillar of faith in our community and frequents our Wednesday-afternoon Bible study, lives alone in what looks to be an abandoned half-constructed building about a 10-15 minute walk away, so I raised my eyebrows and asked my eager collaborators what they thought of an early evening walk through hungry mosquitos and possibly falling rain to drop off Mr. Mejia’s box of blessing.
They all squealed with excitement and asked if we could invite our neighbors (the watchman’s four children who are students in our school and are at our house so often that they have come to form part of our extended family) for the big event. I said yes, and so off we went – 9 kids and I quite literally skipping off down the overgrown, isolated trail in The Middle of Nowhere, Central America from our property to Mr. Mejia’s. The kids reached his house by doing various foot races while two or three people took turns hauling the box on the top of their heads. When we finally got to his house, his two thin dogs started barking like crazy at the end of their chains as we called out from just beyond his front gate to see if he was home.
It had not really occurred to me that he might not be home to receive the box, but that was, in fact, the exact situation we were facing. We shrugged disappointedly and looked at one another as I posed the honest question: “What do we do? Does anyone have any ideas?” At first our four young neighbors looked slightly shocked that an adult was actually asking for their opinion, but quickly enough various people threw out different options, each of which got vetoed by the group. Leave the box outside of his gate? No, because the food would get wet in the rain or someone would walk by and steal it. Come back tomorrow? No, because we are impatient and want to deliver it today.
Then Marina, our 15-year-old neighbor who is in 3rd grade in our school, shrugged innocently, pointed to the little twig-and-twine waist-high front gate that was already falling over and struck us all with her (evil? benevolent?) genius, “…We could just walk in and leave the box in his kitchen [which is an outdoor table under a roof made of palm leaves].”
I looked at the young faces all around me, pondering the absurdity of breaking and entering…and blessing. I said, “Well, um, uh…go quickly! Just Marina. Drop it off and come right back.”
So she opened the simple latch on the gate, carried the box through, took a couple dozen steps, dropped off the box, exited and closed the gate, and we were gone from the scene in less than a minute.
From there the foot races joyously continued as barefoot children — who, whether they understand it or not, just participated in the holy act of administering God’s provision to the poorest of the poor — darted off along the lonely rocky trail toward our property in what, to many, seems like a cursed corner of the earth where nothing good can happen.
My heart – and by all visible accounts, those of the children – overflowed, bubbled even, with a heavenly lightness, a joy that cannot be purchased or chased down. I laughed at the wisdom of God: in a neighborhood literally moaning from so many robberies, murders, broken families, and general confusion and chaos, the King of Kings utilized the unlikely, absurd, ridiculous: a young woman who 10 years ago didn’t have the slightest idea of who Jesus Christ was along with a band of young hooligans, many of which are illiterate and all of which are barefoot, traipsing through the jungle bathed in a heavenly glow to fulfill God’s will in perhaps the most unlikely of contexts. That is our God: light in the darkness, giving in a land of taking, a Kingdom destined for those who become like little children.
May Your Kingdom come, may Your will be done on earth as it in in heaven…
The eldest of the 7 children the Lord has placed in our home, Dayana, turned 15 this month, which is a big milestone for young women in Latin American culture. We worked hard during several weeks leading up to the event on invitations, preparations, etc, and the actual event was a joyous occasion with about 60 people in attendance – several who travelled over an hour to attend – who have formed part of her extended family in these past several years. We are so proud of her — please continue to pray with us for her continued wisdom, protection and joy as she draws nearer to adulthood each day. May she be a beacon of light in the midst of this dark world, and may she be useful in the Lord’s hands for His work.
Jackeline, who moved into our home in January of this year with her younger special needs brother Josue, also had a birthday this month and is now 12 years old. We are currently in a period of discernment regarding the crucial decision of whether she will stay with us long-term as our daughter, growing up in our household until she is an adult and maintaining the parent-child bond with us afterward or if she can/should return to live with her biological family, most likely her grandmother. The other children under our care do not have this decision to make because their biological family members are not in the picture, but Jackeline has both her biological mother (who is extremely manipulative and possibly mentally ill and does not currently have a stable job) and grandmother (who is a wonderful Christian woman but does not have much in terms of economic means) who visit her once a month. When Jackeline and Josue initially moved in with us roughly 8 months ago, the mother said she would only need us to care for them for 3-4 months until she got back on her feet, but recently she told us she is only truly interested in taking Josue back, although even that is uncertain because her emotional and economic state are not stable enough to do so. Jackeline’s attitude during these past several months has mirrored that of a roller coaster, and on many occasions she has refused to do her school work, has disrespected both her teacher and our nurse/cook Miss Martha, and has had an I-don’t-care approach to many things between moments of light, joy and revelation. After entering into a very serious period of discernment with her several weeks ago and praying alongside of her every night about her future, about a week ago she announced that after many weeks of private prayer the Lord granted her peace about staying with us rather than return with her family. Darwin and I continue praying and are waiting on a word from the Lord before making any decisions. Please continue to pray with us regarding these decisions about her future and that the Lord’s will for her life be made known to us, her, and her biological family so that it may be fulfilled in the right timing. Please pray against stress, confusion, and attacks from the Enemy in this time.
Josselyn, who moved into our home with her younger sister Gabriela less than three months ago, recently made the decision to accept Christ during a Bible study in our dining room in the presence of about 30 neighbors, friends, and family. Several of us prayed with her, and immediately afterward she came to me with several confessions, bringing to light what she had previously hid under lies, and desiring to ask forgiveness from her biological mom, who, according to Josselyn, she had mistreated and robbed when she used to live with her. In this short time after her conversion we have rejoiced with her as we see visible changes in her behavior and habits. The morning after receiving the Lord, she took the initiative to go behind our home to kneel in God’s presence, pray, and sing His praises. Please pray for her continued walk with the Lord, her daily protection from the Enemy, and her overall development and joy. She is currently in our homeschool program on the kindergarten level and is eagerly learning the alphabet and the sounds of the letters for the first time in her life. She has interestingly learned to play chess before learning to read!
Since the inception of this blog I have asked for prayer regarding my health, as I have struggled with severe insomnia for several years now and typically sleep only 2-5 nights per week in addition to having had Dengue Fever, Typhoid Fever, and several other blood infections, fevers, etc since moving to Honduras. I praise God for my currently good health (I do not currently have any fevers or viruses), although I still only sleep a few nights per week at best. Please continue to pray that the Lord would grant me a deep rest every night, and that in a very practical way I can lay all my burdens on Him.
Gabriela, who entered our home in July of this year with her older sister Josselyn after having suffered severe abuse, has entered the same small, focused school that Josue attends, and now both are in classes together every morning five days a week. Together with two other classmates and two teachers/psychologists to guide them, they are learning basic manners, the colors, and other basic pre-school behaviors to prepare them eventually for a normal school. Josue still does not talk more than the few basic syllables he has always used and still has to use diapers, but we do have hope that Gabriela will be able to fully recover from the trauma of her past and become a fully-participating member of society one day. Please pray with us for her salvation and transformation, as the other day we received a note from her teacher saying she had kicked the teacher, lied, eaten the other kids’ food, and announced that she would not obey anybody. That was not a good day!
Last Thursday I bumped and jumbled along the rocky roads of our little town with one goal in mind: finding young women whom I would convince to attend our first sex education class.
Sure, I had posted flyers all over town during the several weeks leading up to the event – in the local grocery store, at the bus stop, outside of several little corner stores, at the local nurse’s clinic, etc — and even went walking house to house, visiting roughly 40 houses personally to make the invitation to the event, but, in Honduras, very few people will take the initiative to attend unless they are cornered and cajoled into doing so at the last minute possible, even if attending might save them from a lifetime of ignorance, suffering, and unwanted pregnancies.
So, playing by Honduran rules, at 9:00am, exactly one hour before the event was scheduled to start, I mounted our 2001 cab-and-a-half truck, rolled the windows down, and went to search the streets for the same young women who had probably seen my flyers everywhere and had even received a face-to-face invitation but for whatever reason would not make the effort to come on their own.
My husband Darwin accompanied me and, literally, when I spotted a group of three teenage girls whom I had never seen before in my life standing idly along the main road of our town, I shouted excitedly to no one in particular, “Teenage girls!”, convinced God had put them there for me to find them, put the car in park in the middle of the gravel road, and ran over to invite them to the event that was about to start in less than 45 minutes. Of course they were surprised, but their mom – who happened to be sitting nearby — urged them to go, so they ran in their house, combed their hair and put on skirts, and hopped in our truckbed as I promised the mother to return them to her in roughly three hours.
That was basically how the round-up went, and by the time we drove in through our front gate at 9:55am, there were 16 young women between the ages of 10-32 who were sitting around me in chairs, on a sofa, and on a couple wooden benches under the shade of our porch. Three of them had received a house-visit invitation the day prior and took the initiative to walk up the long, solitary road to our home while the rest were found and brought via my Toyota street-search during the hour before the class was to begin.
Although I was nervous at first, my voice and dry erase marker shaky as all 16 pairs of eyes were on me to explain what most parents here shy away from teaching their own daughters (or simply don’t have the knowledge to do so even if they wanted to), we ended up persevering through a wonderfully rich teaching-discussion of two hours as we discussed both the scientific and emotional/relational/spiritual aspects of sex, menstruation (most women here literally do not know what menstruation is or what it signals even if they have been menstruating their whole adult life), masturbation, men, birth control, pregnancy, virginity and the loss thereof, menopause, and the different stages of life and what they imply.
Towards the end of the discussion, a beautiful 15-year-old asked innocently, laughing self-consciously, “This might be a silly question, but…men can’t get pregnant, then, right?” Pointing toward my drawings of the male and female reproductive systems on the white board in front of us that we had discussed in detail, she said, “I mean, they don’t have the parts…”
Another young woman, at the beginning of the class as I was preparing to draw the illustrations on the board, asked innocently what a vagina is and where it is found. When I explained it to her, her eyes grew wide.
Luckily, these young women are still in school and have not gotten pregnant yet, but many more like them who are only 12- and 13-years old in our neighborhood are already sexually active, and some have already given birth to a child they never were prepared to take care of. In attendance were two single moms: a 21-year-old and a 32-year-old, both of which admitted to having their eyes opened during our two-hour class to many basic details about their body, men, etc, that had previously been mysteries to them even after having travelled the hard road of experience.
For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man. — Romans 7:2-3
At the end of the meeting we all stood, hand-in-hand, and prayed both for men in general – for strength in their temptations, for their purity, and for our wise and supportive interactions with them – and for us women. Before I drove everyone home, many of the women suggested doing a brainstorm on the white board of future teachings they would like us to organize, including dating, the good/bad uses of technology, and forgiveness/healing, among others.
Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the Lord shall be praised. — Proverbs 31:30
After about a year-and-a-half or two of sensing that Biblically-based sexual education was something the Lord wanted us to become involved in (rather than merely rescuing unwanted children — the products — of sexual sin and ignorance), we finally took the big first step, which tends to make the steps that follow more forthcoming. Please pray for us in this new initiative, both for the young women who attended the first meeting and for those in our neighborhood who we hope to reach in the coming months and years.
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never! Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. — 1 Corinthians 6:15-20
The eldest of the seven children the Lord has put in our household to care for as sons and daughters will turn 15 years old in less than three weeks and, honestly, I’m scared to death.
I sit here, reading and re-reading parenting books — entirely skipping over the baby and toddler sections and heading straight for the chapters on adolescence, on how to love and guide someone who is no longer a child — looking to glean bits of wisdom for a journey that instills fear in the hearts of even those parents who have been raising their own child since the day of its birth.
She moved into our home with her two younger siblings exactly 4 months and 8 days after my husband and I were married. I was 23 and she was 13, although I very well might have felt like I was 13 while she may have felt 23. I will never forget the day we met her at the Honduras government’s Child Services office among dozens of other children — as Darwin and I walked up, not knowing the exact ages or genders of the sibling group of three that we would be meeting and possibly inviting to move in with us, I made eye contact with her and the Lord spoke to my heart, “She will be your daughter.” When I asked her age and she innocently answered, “13,” I literally almost passed out.
That raw fear, that trembling sense of awe I felt upon meeting her for the first time has accompanied me every single day since. Many young Honduran women — especially those in rural areas or those affected by poverty — get ‘married’ and/or pregnant by 11 or 12 years old, so to take in a 13-year-old girl who comes from a tragic childhood is to commit oneself to what promises to be a grueling uphill battle with possibly devastating results despite your best efforts.
A gripping sense of being unprepared, of even being the wrong person for the job, often threatens to spook me out of the gargantuan task before Darwin and me. I do puzzles with the younger ones, give piggy-back rides and console those who scrape their knees — but her? What do I do with a young woman who now wears the same bra size I do and who lends me a sanitary pad when I forget to go to the store to buy more?
She calls Darwin and me “Pa” and “Ma,” and we have plans to begin the legal adoption process with her and her siblings in June of next year once we hit our 3-year wedding anniversary and become legally capable of adoption, although she very well might be 17 or 18 by the time all the paperwork gets processed.
So I applied calamine lotion to her spots when she had chicken pox and help with fun hairdos for her different outings. We have long talks with her about decision-making, pray with her for her sexual purity, confront her on her sin as she does on ours, and we resolutely move on after asking for forgiveness and forgiving, trusting in God to work out the great redemption. She flirts with boys and thinks we don’t notice, and Darwin and I stay up late praying for her, discussing her growth, and grabbing at any scrap of wisdom the Lord tosses us on how to raise this young woman according to His will. She oftentimes asks me to put her to sleep at night, and there we have long conversations tinged with a maturity and openness that the younger ones don’t yet have. From there I sing lullabies and songs of praise and give a foot massage, stroking her hair as she drifts off to sleep, sending desperate prayers up to God that our imperfect, late-in-the-game efforts will be enough and that He’ll do the rest.
A couple weeks after she moved into our home in 2013 I was reading the Bible passage to her and her little sister at bedtime about when Jesus says that familial blood ties are not as important as those who, by obeying God, are united in one eternal family. She sat up in her top bunk and said that she wanted to join that family. We talked further, prayed together, and although we have never shared blood ties here on earth, she and I are now united by the blood of Christ and obedience to our Father.
So she plays on the girls’ basketball team I coach and is our faithful, enthusiastic participant in the various Bible studies and classes we teach. She fills the role of Darwin’s teaching assistant in the choirs and music lessons he directs and is even studying at a local university on Saturdays to learn English. She struggles to tell the truth in a culture of lies, fights with ego as I do, tries to make sense of her past, and accepts many changes around her as new siblings arrive and others go. She feels that Darwin and I don’t always understand her, and we put up with her frustrated glances and mood-swings. At times we have wild, joyful tickle fights as she chases us or we chase her around our front yard while on other occasions we endure her chilly silence, not knowing exactly how she is or what she’s struggling with. I desire to be her confidant, to share stories and feelings for hours on end as we both sit cross-legged on her bed, but in reality I don’t have the time to do so nor is that the role the Lord has given me to fill. Sometimes she and I are both in and out so much that a couple days pass before we really sit down and have a good conversation, but what she doesn’t know is that she’s always on my heart, never far from my thoughts and prayers.
On the airplane this June after having attended the wedding of a dear friend of mine who maintained sexually pure until the day of her wedding, I wrote through tears a letter to Dayana, recounting the beautiful details of the wedding and reminding her that I want to be able to rejoice with her, too, someday, as she walks in all white down the aisle to be wed to a man of God. Upon giving her the letter (bundled up with several others I had written her during the time I was away from home), she later told me that she, too, cried upon reading it and hopes by God’s grace that she may be able to walk in such a way.
So she faces adolescent temptations but still enjoys a wild go-around of hide-and-go-seek every once in a while, likes to wear ballet flats even though we live in the country, gets fed up on occasion with her younger siblings, and is in the beginning stages of searching out her identity in the adult realm, the specific purpose and path the Lord would have for her to take. We pay for her art classes, spend evenings hacking through her math homework assignments together, and invite her friends over for movies and popcorn. We laugh that we will be old women together one day, and Darwin and I remind her again of our expectations and hopes for her as God’s child. So I hug her goodnight and she says, “Thanks, Ma, for everything,” and in the depth of my heart I wonder if she means it or if she really resents us and is on the verge of self-destruction. I call my own mom asking desperately for parenting advice, and then, because the electricity has gone out once again, I talk with Dayana by flashlight about my own inadequacies, struggles and faith.
From my limited experience, parenting a teenager seems almost like learning how to cultivate a mentoring relationship with someone who is suddenly joining you and your husband as the third adult in the household. Strict bedtimes no longer seem realistic or necessary, and discipline that works for the younger ones just isn’t appropriate with her anymore. It is a season of learning all over again what it means to trust in God’s grace, to release our grip on control and, rather than turn our knuckles blue with worry or seek to control every move she makes for fear of her failure or humiliation (or ours), we entrust her to the Lord anew, recognizing that she was His all along.
A compelling excerpt from Mike Mason’s book The Mystery of Children in a chapter on adolescence:
Every once in a while in the midst of this darkness [the author’s teenage daughter’s struggles with adolescence], a dim light would flash and I’d hear the words, “This is a spiritual battle. Pray for her.” But prayer is the last thing anyone wants to do in a crisis. Sure, you pray, but it’s not where your main energy goes. Your main energy goes into worrying, fearing, plotting, strategizing. Your imagination paints lurid scenarios and your brain works overtime, spewing out plan after plan to stave off encroaching doom…Meanwhile there’s this gnat buzzing around your head, whispering, “Pray for her. She needs your prayers. I’m her Father. Give her up to Me. Trust Me and pray.” How hard this is! We don’t mind praying so long as we can keep on worrying too. We Christian parents would not be caught bowing down before a pagan shrine, but night after night we kneel and worry beside our children’s beds. We think we are praying, but we are not. There is nothing godly, virtuous, or even practical about worry. Worry is not prayer to God, it is prayer to the person we are worried about…We’re looking to our children to bestow grace upon us. Our peace of mind depends upon their every move…Finally, as a last resort, I let go of my guilt and shame long enough to pray for Heather. That New Year’s Eve I breathed a prayer I knew was right: a clean, clear, humble, bold prayer for the darkness around my daughter to be driven back and for God’s light to fill her heart.
In the past year we have welcomed 10 illiterate children and teens from our rural neighborhood into our free 3-day-per-week ‘homeschool’ program, and thus far 5 (exactly half) have voluntarily walked out not only on the only education they had ever received, but likely on their very future.
One struggle that often leaves me (and my husband, who himself is Honduran) scratching my head, perplexed, is the utter foolishness of many people here. We are not up against a community of people who steal, lie, and roam the streets aimlessly because no one has ever come to lend them a hand, to lovingly show them the Way, but rather many are in the condition they’re in because they foolishly rejected the love, the opportunities, the Truth presented to them in favor of their own misery, their own destruction.
Just yesterday my husband Darwin and I stood on the porch of our Education Building, a small cinderblock structure painted in a melon-like color where Darwin gives his music lessons and where three mornings a week we impart a government-approved elementary-level education to the children in our little school. Emotionally exhausted, we looked out across our large grassy property as our cows mixed and grazed with the herds of two of our neighbors.
“That’s…suicide,” I said as he finished telling me the sad news that the mother of a promising 8-year-old girl in first grade in our school just that morning informed Darwin that she would no longer be sending her daughter to school (…ever) because her daughter reported to her that our 6-year-old daughter Gabriela hit her on the hand during recess.
Previously, the mother had had her daughter in the local public school system, but due to extreme poverty was not able to pay the school fees or uniform costs, so for the last couple years her daughter had just stayed at home with her everyday, doing nothing (a too-common practice here). For the past six weeks or so we had been driving over 10 minutes from our home to theirs to pick her up at her front doorstep and take her up to our property every day to learn to read, write, do basic math, sing in Darwin’s choir, attend Bible study, and participate in agriculture, and every afternoon we did the 20+ minute round-trip drive to drop her back off at home. For free. To serve Jesus and love this little girl. And now, due to the mom’s (and possibly child’s) ignorance and/or blatant foolishness, she has withdrawn her daughter from the only educational opportunity available to her, and has condemned her to a life of illiteracy, idleness and probably teen pregnancy because her daughter complained to her that a little girl two years younger than herself hit her on the hand during recess, leaving no blood and no mark.
Possibly speaking out of ignorance myself, I asked my husband, “Do you think it’s like that in Africa?” He laughed. I continued: “I’ve heard and read of different people in Africa who open up a little school or mission, and like 100 children walk miles barefoot just to show up and learn, grateful for the opportunity. They study hard and become doctors and engineers, desiring to provide for their families and honor God.”
Here, on the contrary, 13-year-old Little Darwin, who several months ago was in second grade in our school, stormed out one morning never to return because he showed up late for the free breakfast before classes and was thus told he would have to wait two hours for recess in order to eat. He condemned himself to illiteracy, roaming the streets and stealing from us over his unwillingness to accept the (extremely small) consequence of his own tardiness.
Fool.
We currently have a 15-year-old girl in third grade in our school program who last week walked out in the middle of class, climbed a tree behind the school, and began yelling at our nurse/cook Miss Martha, saying that she wouldn’t come down until the teacher herself climbed the tree to get her. After another similar incident only two days ago, this young woman herself is on the verge of becoming Number Six to permanently walk out on the only education she’s ever been offered. And her family doesn’t even have enough food to feed her, yet it doesn’t occur to her to stay in school if only to receive the free breakfast and lunch several days a week.
Jackeline, one of the young women the Lord has placed in our lives to love and care for as a daughter and who has been living under our guidance roughly 7 months, recently failed 5th grade in our homeschool program after a very poor effort. Weeks later, upon beginning the 5th grade school year a second time, she refused to do her homework and told the teacher: “It doesn’t matter if I fail again; I’m young enough that I can repeat without getting too behind.” We respond with prayer, long one-on-one talks, the taking-away of privileges and freedoms, written consequences, etc, and she continues onward in a sluggish ungratefulness that makes us want to pull our hair out and scream.
So I write all of this basically to ask for prayer. Darwin and I have jumped through many hoops trying to love and serve the children and youth the Lord has placed around us, and in the end it seems as though with many of them (even some of which live under our roof) we strangely enough end up begging them to care about their own futures or, possibly worse, I become jaded with all their foolishness, with all the long one-on-one- talks that never seem to produce any fruit, with the utter ungratefulness these children/youth display toward God for His favor, and my heart becomes discouraged and hardened. Please pray with and for us, that our labors may not be in vain, and that it may be revealed to us in whom we should invest our energies and resources so as to produce a harvest of good fruit for God’s Kingdom.
The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
— Matthew 3:10
2:39pm Wednesday, September 2, 2015: Less than an hour ago we finished studying God’s Word with our neighbors as we all sat around in an oblong rectangle of chairs, stools and wooden benches in our dining room. It is now what we do every Wednesday afternoon, and many of the same people are coming week after week.
As the time was nearing for the Bible study to start earlier this afternoon, one of our young dogs vomited for the fourth or fifth time today as he lay nearly motionless, skin and bones after struggling with a devastating virus during these last three weeks even while receiving veterinary treatment. As I entered the kitchen, frazzled, the music coming from the little CD player seemed way too loud, and everyone seemed to want to tell me something or ask for help all at once. Large drops of sweat began rolling down my temples as my fever broke. Again. I had not slept last night and therefore felt like everything got on my nerves, and I snapped as kids and teens came strolling in too late to eat after having sacrificed the hour that is designated for eating in order to play soccer in our front yard. No one had moved the tables and benches, and as I began to somewhat frantically (although I tried to appear calm) sweep out all the dust, dropped bits of sticky rice and other mysterious particles from our large concrete dining room floor, I think everyone was very purposefully (and wisely) trying to stay out of my way. And the bad news: I, the Big Grump, would be leading the Bible study in less than five minutes!
As we sat down to begin the study, I sensed that several of the kids/teens whose food I took away for having arrived late had become bitter toward me and that everyone was probably wondering why I looked so stressed. So, with gritted teeth, I asked for forgiveness for my bad attitude in front of everyone and quickly blamed my insomnia before proceeding on with the teaching.
The marvelous part about all of this is not that I did not particularly want to be present and, much less, be the one designated to impart God’s Word to the 25 people all looking at me, but that even in the midst of my terrible attitude, near nervous breakdown, and general exhaustion, God’s Word came through without folly.
This week’s discussion centered around the question: How does the World treat the poor, the widows and the orphans? And, once everyone’s faces and general morale dropped as person after person shared how they themselves or people they know have suffered mistreatment, been taken advantage of, and generally been overlooked in society, we turned to God’s Word to answer the question: How does God treat the poor, the widows and the orphans?
Each week thus far we have taken a theme – be it injustice-Justice, lies-Truth, or change-Constant to compare how the World is with how God is.
Many of our neighbors have no concept of who God is, and if they don’t understand who He is – compassionate, just, good, true, loving – they will not even have the first notion of wanting to hear His Word or know Him.
Our mentor Larry has taught many times that Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s first command in the garden of Eden because they doubted His goodness. God gave the command out of love: “Do not eat from said tree.” Then the serpent came, calling God a liar and proposing to the humans that they do exactly what their Creator God warned them against. In believing the serpent (the liar), they evidently felt him to be more trustworthy than God, somewhere deep down feeling that God didn’t have their best intentions at heart, and therefore disobeyed.
If I think (wrongly) that God just wants to control me, is content with all the pain and suffering in the world, takes the side of the bad guys or better yet just ignores humanity, and doesn’t want me to enjoy life, why would I even have the slimmest desire to know and, much less, serve Him?
So we are, with the little pinches of wisdom that God grants us, trying to disarm the Garden-of-Eden mentality. We ask: What are some of the lies or instances of trickery or unfilled promises in our world? Everyone, obviously, has a lot to say, from false advertising in the marketplace to corrupt government leaders to infidelity among spouses and so on. We then assert: It is impossible for God to lie, and He always fulfills His promises.
On the topic of ‘change,’ we brainstorm: everything – our own bodies, time itself, buildings, relationships, plants – changes in our world. On the contrary: God does not change; He is the only constant that exists.
What are some of the injustices that we see or experience in our world, our neighborhood, our own lives? Another long, long list is shared as everyone in the oblong rectangle of chairs, stools and benches pipes in. But God? He is absolutely just and loves justice.
So today we discussed how the World treats the poor, widows and orphans. And, with many of the people present themselves being poor and/or orphans, it almost seemed like too-touchy of a subject. Literally their faces fell as person after person spoke the truth: in general, the World does not place a high value on the marginalized. I assume many thought the discussion would end there; a sad summary of the suffering and shame they already know too well.
But as we remembered that each week we a take a contrast (how the world is versus how God is), the despair painted on their faces was literally turned to a visible joy-surprise as we read Bible verse after Bible verse about God’s heart for the poor, the widow and the orphan and his desire for justice for them. As several people took turns reading the verses out loud, person after person read words of truth about God’s prophetic promises to bring justice to the wronged, to comfort and protect the widow, to be the father to the fatherless. Jesus Christ’s own personal statement about his purpose in the world includes pronouncing good news to the poor, declaring freedom to the captives and giving sight to the blind!
As we finished the study, it occurred to me to ask if anyone was hearing this – God’s heart for the poor and outcast – for the first time. To my surprise, almost half of the people present shared through smiles of joy-struck awe that this was, in fact, the first time they had ever heard that God truly loves the poor and desires justice for them.
I was astonished as one person after another — several of whom were middle-aged adults — shook their heads in awe and confessed that they literally never knew that God desires to be their refuge, that He commands His people to treat them well for love of Him. One older neighbor of ours, a man in his early sixties who has probably lived his entire life as a poor man, was the first to admit that today was the first time he had ever heard such outlandish Truth.
So I am encouraged anew to share the good news of the merciful, loving God — the Creator of the universe who favors all equally and offers the same promises to all who choose to repent and follow, the justice-desiring King who cries out to defend those on the margins and who Himself became one on the margins to save many. There are people who have literally never heard!
In the past month two new students from our little town have become students in the one-room schoolhouse where we educate several of our children and a handful of our neighbors. Michelle, age 8, and Selbin, age 11, have entered the program at the first-grade level and are participating weekly in agriculture, music, and Bible study along with academic classes. We currently have 6 children/youth from the community in our school along with several of the 7 kids under our full-time care.
[Explanation of the need for our school program]: There are a couple public elementary schools in our area, but the education the students receive is very poor due to lazy and/or absent teachers, sexual abuse that occurs on the playground, and a ridiculous number of ‘holidays’. Many students who are in sixth grade, which is the last year of elementary school according to the Honduran system, cannot even read or write. Even so, many poor families cannot pay the fees for their kids to attend these corrupted government-run schools nor can they purchase the uniform or buy basic school supplies. Thus illiteracy, unemployment and idleness run rampant in our little town, and as more mothers approach us asking if their kids can become students in our school, we sense that this program may grow with time.
Miss Martha, our nurse and cook who labors alongside of us Monday-Friday, has a 22-year-old daughter named Isis who this past month began working three days a week with us as the teacher of our school program. She is a fantastic teacher and assigns quite a bit of homework each night! Having her in the school has liberated Darwin and I to plan, work in the office on administration, run errands, and have one morning per week when we can rest together.
Gabriela (age 6) and Josselyn (age 10), biological sisters, moved into our home in July of this year and are adjusting very well to life in our family. Gabriela has received her medical exams and psychological evaluation and is all set to enter into a small school geared toward children with traumatic pasts and/or special needs for roughly 5 months to prepare her with basic vocabulary, social skills, and kindergarten-level academic knowledge (the colors, how to hold a pencil, etc) so that she will hopefully be ready in February to enter first grade at the private Christian school where Gleny and Jason attend. Emotionally and behaviorally she has improved leaps and bounds in just seven weeks of living with us, and we are thrilled to see her grow into a young women in conformity with God’s own heart. Josselyn has entered first grade in our homeschool program and is doing very well in all respects.
Several weeks ago Darwin and I started a Bible study in our dining room for our neighbors and the children/youth in our school program and choir, and we have had between 14-22 people attend each week, not including Darwin, our seven kids, and Miss Martha. Anyone from our neighborhood is invited, and we serve lunch from 12:00-1:00pm, study God’s word together from 1:00-2:00pm, and then have some kind of soccer game with the kids in our front lawn from 2:00-3:00pm. We are excited to see how the Lord will use this time to touch the lives of many of our neighbors with the good news of Jesus Christ.
A local family who has four of their kids in our school program moved this past week to the little watchman’s house on our property to begin working the land and helping with basic security. We are looking to develop a good relationship with them as we discern how the Lord would have us to love and serve one another for His glory.
God has planted a new idea in our hearts, and that is to establish a fixed time each week in which we study the Word of God with our neighbors.
It’s really as simple as deciding to do it and setting a time, so last week Darwin and I went walking around the gravel paths of our neighborhood to pop in and invite about a couple dozen households with which we already have relationships. We didn’t even have any kind of handout or written invitation or really even a developed idea of what the Bible study would look like, so we simply said, “If you want to come to our home tomorrow at noon, we’re going to eat lunch and then study God’s word from 1:00-2:00pm. We’ll be doing this every Wednesday at the same time with whomever has the desire to join us.”
So Tuesday night as Darwin and I were discussing who else we should invite to the Bible study the next day (in Honduras if you invite people one or two weeks ahead of time, they forget and don’t come), before processing the thought, my lips said, “Brayan and Little Darwin.”
Darwin looked at me and let out a sigh-laugh, saying, “This must be from God, because in my flesh I definitely do not want to invite them.” After both got expelled and/or quit voluntarily from homeschool twice in the last year and have since been back only to bully others, steal and cause a ruckus, we haven’t been too keen on having them around our home in the last several weeks. We’ve heard from various sources that they’ve stolen from other neighbors as well, have had sexually errant behavior together in the local river, and are slandering us in the local community.
‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’ doesn’t necessarily mean give another undeserved opportunity to someone who’s thrown away the many they’ve had (as in “Come on back to homeschool again” or “That’s okay, you can come eat in our home everyday even though you aren’t currently working or studying and you don’t respect us”), but to us it does mean open up your home to study God’s True Word with anyone and everyone that has a desire to do so, even if they’ve done you wrong, rejected any prior help, or are currently walking the wrong path.
We both agreed to invite them out of obedience to God and then leave it up to them whether or not they came, so the next day we passed by the shanty where Little Darwin lives with his parents and where Brayan is also currently living after his step-mom got fed up with his antics and kicked him out. We breathed deep as several emaciated dogs came charging at us, determined to protect the rocky, muddy, trash- and feces-littered property. A young female relative and Little Darwin’s mom greeted us enthusiastically and invited us inside the fence to talk. As my husband sat on a plastic chair and I sat on a rock beside him, we gave the simple invitation to his mom as she rocked back-and-forth on a threadbare hammock, asking her to pass the message on to Brayan and Little Darwin when they returned home.
As we were getting up to leave, Little Darwin (we call him this only to distinguish him from my husband Darwin, but now that he is 14 or 15 years old he’s not little at all) came walking through the front gate, undoubtedly surprised to see us chit-chatting with his mom. We stood up to greet him, shook his hand, invited him to study God’s Word with us in about an hour-and-a-half (it was already 10:30am), and then left.
Darwin (my husband) and I arrived home, showered, and were finishing the preparations for the Bible study with a lot of anticipation in our hearts to see if any of our neighbors would end up coming. Around 11:45am Darwin walked out front to see how things were coming along, and when he came back to our bedroom I asked him if anyone had come yet.
His answer: “Little Darwin.”
I almost couldn’t believe it (and so punctual!), so I walked out front on my way to the kitchen and, sure enough, Little Darwin, a giant among children, stood somewhat awkwardly but not ashamedly against the wall on the Education House’s porch freshly bathed and in mismatched camoflauge clothing. We smiled when we saw each other and I gave him a big hug, inviting him and several of the other kids to play soccer with me while we waited to see if anyone else was going to arrive.
Well, 17 neighbors ended up coming that first day to study God’s Word with us – some as old as 70-something years and others as young as eight or ten. Several youth from Darwin’s choir came in sibling groups, a couple older men came alone, and one middle-aged neighbor (the one who showed up a few Sunday’s ago with his guns to help trap the teen thieves) came with his wife, their four kids, and a granddaughter. In all, there were 26 people gathered in our dining room – some who steal, others who trap those who do, and others still who get stolen from, all in the same room – united for the sole purpose of learning more about the Living God. Some arrived in cars, others arrived on foot. Some already know the Savior and others might have only come because they know some of His followers. One teenage boy showed up with a notebook and pencil, ready to take notes on the study, and another elderly neighbor told us afterward that he plans on inviting another neighbor of his to our “classes.” Many people prayed, many people shared, and overall I was stunned by what God can do when we simply become available.
I think many times we delay our obedience to God because we are waiting for the perfect time or for the stars to align or for a sickness to pass or for our schedule to clear up.
The only reason we carried through with this initiative last week was because we had determined in our hearts to do so out of obedience, to take the first step and allow God to guide those that follow. I have been struggling with a virus that has had me confined to bed-rest several hours per day for over four weeks now, and as my fever continues on day after day and my body struggles in its weakness, I thought Surely we can delay the Bible Study a couple more weeks until I feel better, but I sensed the Lord was telling me: The time is now. Just become available, and I will do the rest. I can work through your weakness.
So no signs, no music, no frills, and maybe no real energy or health – just a simple spoken invitation in the foothills of the mountains to come study the Word of God with a couple people who themselves still have a whole lot left to learn.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
Isaiah 40:29-31
This morning as Darwin, four of our kids and several youth from our neighborhood were working in agriculture on our property, I slapped on my tall rubber boots and went trekking around to take some photos…
This morning at 5:53am as I went rolling down the highway with Jason and Gleny in the backseat on our way to drop them off at school, I whispered a prayer as I looked out over the misty pineapple fields that spawned out to our right under the gaze of the mountain range beyond: Lord, I know Your Word says to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, and even though that doesn’t always make sense to me and right now in my flesh I don’t want to do that, I will trust You and obey, so I pray now for them. Although I don’t know exactly what to pray or what should happen, You do, so I pray that You would see them and be with them. Amen.
Yesterday was my 25th birthday, and while we had planned to spend the entire day celebrating with our faith community about an hour away from our home, my husband Darwin ended up spending just about the entire day in La Ceiba’s police station. That morning we had received a series of phone calls while in our discipleship group informing us that several local youth had broken into our home that morning while it was left unattended, and that numerous key members of our little town had collaborated to respond to the incident.
This was the second robbery in a span of two weeks, and the ump-teenth robbery in two years. But rather than it being a mysterious disappearance of our chickens in the night or finding our fence with a cut-out hole the next morning or wondering who broke the pad-lock off the storage unit to steal the electric generator or where the big sack of rice had gone, this time we caught the thieves in action. After experiencing a clone of the same robbery two Sundays ago, we hired a dear friend of ours to hide out at our home (think some strange breed of guerrilla-warfare) this Sunday while we would be gone, making himself invisible to see who the thieves are. He did just that, and, sure enough, the thieves came, called out to see if anyone was home, and, when no one answered, they hopped the fence and broke into the kitchen, starting to fill several big sacks full of food while two companions kept the look-out on the other side of the fence.
It was then that our friend called the police, who, of course, tragically delayed in their response and arrived on the scene way after-the-fact only after the vice-mayor of the town was called and got involved. But, thankfully, our watchman friend immediately called another neighbor of ours who showed up via the back of our property with his own weapons and, to not go into all the details, trapped the thieves red-handed with the help of two adult men.
Two of the teenage boys who were trapped and sent to the police station (a rare event here – most people are afraid to report robberies because the police fail to take action and then the thieves harm or kill those who reported them) are members of Darwin’s choir and work closely with us in agriculture each week, and the other two are not known personally. After investigation, they all confessed that the other two members of their ‘gang’ who broke in two Sundays ago are Brayan and Little Darwin. Yes, Brayan whom we have loved as a son and Little Darwin who has participated in homeschool, music and agriculture.
So yesterday as I sat on the cool concrete floor in our mentors’ home during discipleship group surrounded by our seven children and numerous brothers and sisters in the faith, Darwin doing the police processing in La Ceiba, I struggled mightily with rage in my heart toward those who only want to kill, steal and destroy, those who can’t just leave us alone to etch out the little living that God has called us to. We have enough problems with our seven kids’ behavior and generational struggles, demanding work from sun-up to sun-down, doing the difficult task of shepherding those who don’t always want to be shepherded, and having to put up with power and water outages all the time without having to deal with all this additional chaos that only distracts, stresses and exhausts.
God’s Word is never far from my thoughts, and as though forming a protective cloud or shield around my anger, God placed His commandment to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us on all sides of my violent mental wanderings. As my thoughts shot off in one direction or another and as I fantasized about how I wished I would have caught them and taken a baseball bat to them or worse, my thoughts could never go too far because, like a ping-pong ball trapped within walls, I always hit up against God’s perfect Word and could go no further. But bouncing, bouncing, bouncing, my anger boiled and ping-ponged around inside of me, always finding God’s command and turning back.
So my question is not Is God just? or Where is God in the midst of so much suffering and chaos? or Why is this happening to us? But rather, trusting all the answers that we already have available to us in Scripture, my prayer – sometimes through tears and sometimes through rage or disappointment, stress or total exhaustion – is for perseverance.
It is not enough to believe God is just in a moment of serene prayer or upon reading a passage from Scripture or after having been encouraged by a dear friend. We must believe He is just every hour of every day until we take our last breath – during seasons of peace and seasons of war, in the midst of betrayals, after great loss and when we find ourselves beaten down by the evil of this world (both within us and without).
It is not enough to read Jesus’ words that call us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us and think among roses that we have none – we must live those words when the times comes when we do, in fact, find evil breathing down our necks.
It is not enough to say that God is good when we have a stable job and a roof over our head and our family members are alive and we’ve eaten today. To believe that God is good is to say it through tears, in despair and confusion, without all the answers and in times of trial in addition to in times of happiness and ease – to know that He is good not because our lives are currently good or the weather is favorable or we got what we wanted but because He never changes and deserves our praise.
So we pray for our dear friend who played ‘watchman’ yesterday, for his protection after he took a rather daring step that almost no one here takes. Last night as our kids lie asleep and Darwin and I sat on a small rug in our bathroom, discussing the events of the day, he told me that our friend asked for Darwin and I to take care of his wife and kids should those same confused thieves or their friends decide to take his life for reporting them. The young robbers are loose once again after the police gave them a slap on the wrist, and we wait for their next strike in this twisted game of cat and mouse, light and darkness.
Oh, and I just received an alarming phone call from our 8-year-old son Jason’s teacher saying that his behavior today has been atrocious, that he is refusing to do his work and is telling his classmates he is going to kill them and cut off their heads. So in the here and now, I can’t really place where it is that light is streaming in on this battlefield of eternal proportions, this fight for justice in a lawless land.
But I can tell you one thing – that whether by the results we can see it seems futile to work for the Good because the forces of darkness win battle after battle in the here and now, the flickering light of Christ waits patiently: God is good, and He is just, and He calls us to persevere until the end, because His perfect, liberating justice will be served in this lawless land.
Hidden Treasures: Seeking the Kingdom of God in Honduras 