The first time I went on a mission trip I went to Haiti. I had no idea what I was doing or how to love the people there. I didn’t engage well with people, I didn’t speak Creol, and I don’t remember anyone’s name. I was overwhelmed. I saw people living in shacks and sharing space with their 15 closest relatives. I saw floors that were made of dirt, but carefully swept so that their house would be “clean”. And I was overwhelmed and blown away with the “wrongness” of it all. That it wasn’t right that I lived where I lived and they lived like this. I was exposed to witchcraft for the first time as we would sit on our compound and hear the drums and screams going. We lost power at 6 at night, went to bed early, and woke up with the sun. We ate the same food pretty much all week. Honestly, I was ready to go home. But it changed me.
Its been a long time… but the Lord started capturing my heart even then. I pray that He would begin doing that with some of those who come through Honduras this summer as well.
And I need their perspective. I need those new, fresh eyes who have never seen this before to remind me to be overwhelmed. It is hard and so shockingly different than what we are used to and how we grew up. And there is a wrongness to that. It is shocking that 6 people live in a one-room house the size of my living room. It is wrong that kids go without food until malnourishment makes their hair turn yellow.
I have ceased to be shocked all the time. But I have also started to see that this isn’t all of who these people are. They are so much more than what they have or don’t have. There is a spiritual and emotional part of their hearts that needs to be known and fought for and taught and nurtured.
Anyway… just pondering today. Thankful that the Lord uses our glimpses into the nations, even when we have no idea what we’re doing, to increase our heart to see the Gospel go out to the world.
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