More Than Enough

Note: The following is a journal entry from my first trip to Honduras in 2007. I wanted to capture an incredible experience I had on the trip with as much detail as possible, so the evening it happened I wrote it out with as much detail as my tired hand and brain could muster. If memory serves, the only people who have heard this entry were my team members the night I wrote it. But I remembered it recently and wanted to share. So here it is, word for word, unedited except for grammar and spelling, just like I wrote it down in a humid hotel room in Puerto Cortez just over four years ago.

(Brian was our contact from the States in Honduras. Olga lived across from a church where we did a BS, met her kids and she sold us the bags initially)

Friday, May 25^th 7 pm or so

Today, Brian and I walked from Central Park to Olga’s house to buy the bags she made for us. They were 80 lempira each, but we all pitched in 100 to help her out. It’s a very real way to help someone who really needs it.

The walk was long, and it was a hot Honduran day. We walked on the dirt road and although I had been exposed to the same type of poverty for over a week, it still was hard to accept. My mind struggles to accept why I have so much, and so many have so very little.

We arrived at Olga’s house to find the bags weren’t quite ready. Olga needed to refill her Aguazul jug, so Brian and I along with a few kids went to refill it. I paid for the new water and carried it back because I wanted to pay the cost for these people who matter so much to God.

When we got back we went into the house and although I speak almost no Spanish, I began to talk to the kids in the house. They are Yesinia, Tommy, Henri, Lupe and Gladys. Gladys was touching my leg and her infectious smile led me to do the only thing I thought was appropriate. I picked her up, set her in my lap and wrapped one arm her tiny shoulders. She sat there holding my other hand with her head resting on my chest, and without either of us saying a word we communicated care, peace and love without a common language. Sometimes love speaks louder than English, Spanish or any other language ever could. I think for a minute I felt just a sliver of the love God feels for me, while I was holding a tiny, frail, yet precious Honduran girl.

That was all in the first ten minutes, but we spent the whole morning at Olga’s house. There were only four bags ready when we arrived, and none of them had rope on them yet. Olga showed me how to put them on and I went to work. She is very ungifted in the area of multi-tasking, and was telling Brian about her life and her kids, and he would relay the info to me. The problem was that she would stop working to talk, and we were quickly catching up to her. She would also set down her scissors and then minutes later we would all search for them because she couldn’t find them. Sad but hilarious.

The house was more of a shack than anything. One room for six people, and there was no sense of order inside. There was a T.V playing speeches from the Honduran government, and a fan that didn’t oscillate so we had to choose who got relief from the heat. It was such an eye opening experience to the type of home lifer so many people in this world have.

Olga loves the children. Yesinia is her daughter, but the others are her grandkids. Their mother was shot and I don’t know the details, but now her kids live with their grandma. One of Olga’s sons was shot 5 times as his taxi was robbed, but he lived and moved to New Orleans shortly before Hurricane Katrina.

Yesinia did some dishes and cooked the other kids their rice and beans while Brian helped the younger kids bathe and I kept working.

The kids were funny because they couldn’t find their school clothes. Then instead of talking to Brian and I, Olga talked to the kids but stalled work on the bags. I didn’t mind though because God was working on me. I began to understand that life in that one room, wooden shack was probably about the same every day. I realized how fortunate I am to be able to change my routine, to drive to a movie, to sleep in my own bed, especially when I’m no more deserving then they are.

Olga gave me a picture of the kids so I would remember them. I was touched by her generosity, and the prospect of being able to see the kids whenever I want to.

We left with six out of nine bags, and a promise they would all be done the next day. As we walked back, I thought about the experience. This whole day God has been using it to teach me something. During our walk back, Brian and I walked through a run-down, abandoned house. But it had the potential to be amazing. I started thinking about living in a place like this where I could just help and love people like Olga and her family. Where I could hold kids like Gladys and let them know they are loved. Where I could be the hands and feet of Jesus. As I walked my heart broke for the family and many others like them. Not only because they are poor and in need, but because God allowed me to understand how He loves. I barely know them but I care about them. I wish I could just make their lives better and more comfortable, but I can’t. The only fitting way I can think to end this is to thank God for what He showed me today, and to ask Him to work in their lives. To provide for their needs, to help the kids in school, to keep them safe and to love them like only He can. Maybe one day I’ll see them again. Until then I trust that they are in the hands of God, and His love, mercy and grace for them is in every way, more than enough.

(I signed it at the end, and one year later I went back to see this incredible family and their new, 3 bedroom house. It was amazing to see how God had provided and been faithful to them. Olga couldn’t remember my name but she said she saw my face sometimes in her dreams. She held my face with both hands and said Miguel over and over again. I got to hold Gladys again, and laugh with Lupe. I played soccer with Tommy and Henri and caught up with Yesinia. The pictures are of Gladys and the whole family. Tommy is the bigger boy and Yesinia is the oldest girl. These are my brothers and sisters, and I love them)

On: July 30, 2011

At: Home

Listening to: Bethel Live-Be Lifted High

Processed

Processed is a funny word. I made a “lifestyle change” this last week as far as the food I put into my body, and with some deeply appreciated help, I’m hoping I can make it stick. And in this fad diet, weight loss crazy culture, I know full well I’m not supposed to eat processed foods. It’s not that I don’t want to. They usually taste delicious, but supposedly they wreak havoc on the body, so I’m trying to avoid them. Anyway, a lot of this is beside the point.

Processed. It means, and I know using the word in the definition is against the rules, but I don’t care, that something has been processed. To get really technical, it has gone through a process. That’s what I have done in the last 20 days. The 20 days I have spent back in the US and not in Nicaragua. I have spent a lot of time thinking about, mulling over and processing my time there, what I learned, how I lived and what it means to me. I worry about my processed thoughts like I do about processed foods. Are they over-thought now and not useful? I think in this case, processed is the way to go.

It’s so hard to avoid the temptation to just say the trip as great when people ask how it was. I don’t know what they want to hear, or how long they have. So I have appreciated the people who have asked specific questions. Like, what was your favorite part, or what did you do? They seem basic, but they force me to say something concrete, something thought out, something processed. Asking how it went is general and my gut reaction is a general answer. But when people ask the seemingly basic questions it reminds that I had an incredible experience being the hands and feet of Jesus to people he loves in Nicaragua. And what I think I arrive at after processing is that I need to love all people like that. It’s easy when they are cute Nicaraguan kids who want to play basketball and get piggy-back rides. It’s so much harder when they cut me off in traffic or complain about circumstances beyond my control at work, but they are still sons and daughters of my King, loved in the same way I am. The same way Anthony, Anna, Wendi, Kessler and so many other friends I made in Nicaragua are.

So, that’s what I’ve come up with so far. Love people the same. Nothing new or overly profound. Well, not until people start doing it. Then the world gets changed by the love of Jesus Christ. I think that’s the goal. So I’ll take my memories processed and keep working on them.

Written on: July 24, 2011

At: Home (Gryffindor Tower)

Listening to: Michael Grimm-I Am Michael Grimm

Home Again

It’s hard to pick a place to start. I’ve been back from Nicaragua for a week now and I’m still working through it all and trying to process everything that happened. It’s hard to single out memories and experiences to share and it’s hard to find to communicate how meaningful they were to people I didn’t share them with. One friend asked how it was and I said it was great. His response was “just great?” I don’t know what that means. I’m still at the point where it’s hard to talk about it and I don’t know exactly what to say or how to express what I experienced. I wasn’t mad at him at all, I just didn’t know how else to talk about it.

Anyway, I guess the most profound thing I took away is how being to Jesus to someone else doesn’t have to be an over-spiritualized, hyper dramatic thing. It can be as practical as holding a kid’s hand while we watch a movie. Or digging a driveway and laying bricks in it. Water proofing houses and helping kids reach high enough to dunk a basketball are tangible ways of communicating that God loves them and they have incredible value and purpose in his Kingdom. I lived like that for 10 days and it drives me crazy how different life is now that I’m home. I has become a way more important word than it was on the trip. My focus is on me more often than not and I fail to see the same lovable, valuable people like I did in Nicaragua. That’s so frustrating because I’ve been there before and it feels like I didn’t learn anything. If I did I’d be living differently.

Don’t get the wrong idea. The trip was amazing and I did learn a ton. I’m still in that place of decompressing it all and making it a part of my life all the time. I’m a missionary here too and I want to live with the intentionality and determination to love like I did with strangers who become friends in Nicaragua. Hopefully writing it out helps. More to come soon.

Written on: July 12, 2011

At: Mel’s Diner

Listening to: Weird music at Mel’s