Tonight I’m so thankful for the Lord’s provision.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21
Immeasurable more than all we ask or imagine… its true.
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.
Some of these children are stealing my heart.
I’m serious about that. I love that I can actually communicate with these kids. Not fluently, not even always well, but we can joke around and really talk to each other. And I’m getting to know their personalities. I can tell when their feelings are hurt or when they are being sarcastic. I’ve met one girl who is about 14 who just cracks me up. We love joking around with each other and laugh constantly when we’re talking. They love getting special attention and ask me if I remember their names (which I don’t always yet, but it will come).
Every face has a personality.
I’ve gone on lots of short-term missions trips, I have pictures of lots of little faces from lots of different places. But I’ve never gotten to really know them until now. And it really is amazing to get to see glimpses into who they really are. And I love it.
There is a precious little kid named “Ever” who lives in Armenia Bonito. Today he went walking into the building and said…
“Necesito la pfffff” (translation “I need the pffffff”)
Umm… that’s not English or Spanish?
He comes back out a couple minutes later with the air pump for the soccer ball. Of course, the pfffff!
It made me smile :)
As did the double rainbow that we saw after some really heavy rain this morning. The water situation here is terrible right now, we have 16 hours a water a day in my neighborhood, but some don’t have water at all. So the rain was welcome and so was the rainbow as yet another reminder that our God is faithful and keeps His promises! Praise Him for that!
Here are some more pictures from the conference this weekend.
Bill Yarbrough was the speaker for the weekend.
This morning we broke into small groups…
These are some of the kids from one of the families that my team knows really well. Their mom is going to be cooking lunch once a week for our summer teams.
This is Alisson. She is five years old and really precious. She came to the conference with her mom and did amazingly well sitting still. So during the breaks we played and she shared candy with me :)
Erin made certificates for each of the conference attendees. They really appreciated them.
I really loved getting to spend the weekend with all of these people in Armenia Bonito. Keep praying that they will grow in knowledge of Christ and confidence in His grace.
This weekend we are hosting a theological conference in Armenia Bonito. This is a great time for nationals to come and learn more about Scripture. Many of them have not had much opportunity to dive really deeply into the Word. It makes me so grateful for all the youth groups, summer camp, conferences, solid preaching, etc. that I have received. I mean, honestly, the list goes on and on to the point that at times in colleges I really didn’t want to go to another conference b/c I had been to so many. What a privilege that I took for granted, just being taught the Word of God.
This weekend Bill is here from the MTW office to share and to teach. Its been such a blessing.
Also, I was put in charge of the singing and prayer times. So I enlisted my brother Jeremy to sing and play, Bethany to sing, and Leo to play the conga drum. Yep, he’d never played on a drum before, but he did great! Oh, and the national pastor jumped in on the drum set at the last minute as well.
I was a little nervous before-hand because I had to introduce everything in Spanish and lead the prayer time in Spanish. I told Bill that he was my panic button and if I forgot every Spanish word I knew I was just going to call him up and we’d just pray for a long time. :) But it actually went well for a first time and I don’t think I’ll be quite as nervous tonight.
Please be praying for the people who are coming to the conference. We would really love to see the Lord break the chains of works righteousness and allow these people to really know and experience His life-changing free grace!
Today I looked at someone straight in the face and said, “umm… no entiendo”, translation, “I don’t understand”. Let me just let you in on the whole story. I wish I could tell you in person b/c it would be so much funnier.
All of my days in Honduras have had one thing in common, they contain all kinds of things that I did not expect to happen. Like the day that the horse drawn cart took my trash pile away. Or the day that I woke up to men in my backyard fixing my gutter. Or the day that there was a festival, basically in my driveway. I just am caught off-guard here all the time. Today was no exception.
I had an appointment with our team’s lawyer this morning. We were going to go and have some meetings with people who can help my vision for working with young moms come to fruition. I was excited, and nervous. This was going to be hours of Spanish, meeting new people, networking… all things that drain me.
So we go to this one place that is sponsored by the government. They give all kinds of skills classes for free to anyone who wants to take them. (Which, by the way, I don’t think very many people know about this, because its awesome and they would be doing it.) Its going to be amazing once I’m working with girls to send them here and let them learn skills that can help them get jobs. For example, cooking, sewing, english, hotel work, etc.
We get there and go in to talk to the receptionist. Of course they don’t have a catalogue of classes, that would be too easy. So we’re looking at some lists of classes they offer, but they aren’t all written down anywhere. She’s telling us about the classes and how to sign up. There isn’t a schedule, they just wait ‘till there are 15 people who want to do it, then offer the class.
So there is sign-up going on for a basic cooking class. I’m not totally paying attention b/c I’m doing something else, but I see my lawyer writing her name down. Umm… okay?!?
So she says to me, “can I write your name down?”
Which is when I say… “I don’t understand. Am I going to come and attend this class.”
“Yep, you and I are going to take this class together so that you can get to know people and learn how the system works.”
“Well, umm, okay, sign me up. When is it?”
”We don’t know. Four hours a day for five days whenever they have enough people.”
Well, okay flexibility. Here I come :) I’m taking a cooking class, for research! I’m sure she had told me this beforehand that we’d be signing up for a class, but somehow I totally missed that part.
So here’s to hoping that I meet lots of people, understand something, and don’t fail every test!
