Before and After

One thing that I find interesting about working in the areas we do here in Honduras is the before and after pictures.  If you could see these girls on a day to day basis, they look nothing like this.  They don’t have their hair up or make-up on, they are wearing old worn-out clothes that look like pulling one loose string might unravel the whole thing.  But when its time to go downtown… well, this happens…

On the other hand… maybe its not such an anomaly… I mean my favorite clothes are my pajamas and my old worn out grey sweat pants.  I just have to leave the house too often to stay in them all day… well most days :)

Anyway… back to the point.  Meet Dunea.  The girl on the right in this picture is one of the girls that I’ve been talking to about joining Puerta de Esperanza.  I almost didn’t write this post to introduce her, because I have no idea whether or not she will end up walking this road with us.  But I decided that whether or not you ever hear her name again, you can pray for her and the sweet little baby that will soon be making an appearance.  She’s convinced it’s a girl… but never having had an ultrasound makes that a little hard to confirm :) 

If I could show you a picture of her house and the other kids who live there you would understand that this picture doesn’t do her situation justice.  They are suffering malnutrition and neglect.  They have never been to school and cannot read or write.  Their moms have less than honorable professions and are never around.  And she’s supposed to figure out how to be a mom herself in the middle of all of this?  It’s a cycle… a terrible one.

So we talked a lot today about an opportunity for change and a different life.  But when you’re living the life that you’ve always known in the house that you’ve always lived in its hard to see that you could have anything else.  Our whole conversation reminded me of this CS Lewis quote…

“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

And I know that this is my life.  I am slow to give up what I know to follow the Lord in complete obedience trusting that what He has for me is so much better.

So I get it.  I know the fear.  But I do pray that the Lord would lead Dunea to whatever He has for her, whether that be Puerta de Esperanza or not.  But more than anything that she would know HIM and learn to give up the life she knows to experience infinite joy!