Oppression

Imagine growing up in a home where you lost your dad at a young age.  Your mom remarries and chooses her new husband over you, her only child at the time.  You slowly feel more and more edged out as she has other children who are more well-loved.  And then it starts... around age 9... your step dad making advances and eventually it leads to more than that.  No one knows and you don't trust anyone enough to tell them.  Years later you muster the courage to tell you mom and she doesn't believe you or do anything to stop it.

What do you do?  What are your choices?  There is no way out.

You go to church, but it is just rules after rules... you decided to accept the God they speak about, but eventually being in the same church building with your mom and step-dad week after week knowing what goes on at home... its just too much.  So you leave.

And you do everything you can to try to forget.

And then there was a boy and he offered you a way out... a new life.  So you took it.  Its not the dream you thought, or maybe you really didn't dream at all, or think it through.  Maybe you took the only out you thought you may ever get.  But now you're not sure its better... life is like a prison because he is jealous and possessive and doesn't trust you to even go for a walk through the neighborhood.  And sometimes there is food, and sometimes there isn't.

And now there is going to be a baby.  Do you even know how to be a good mom?  And do you stay where you are?  If you leave where do you go?

In the back of your mind you also know that you know God, you met Him that time long ago in that legalistic church.  You feel far away from Him, but you know He is loving and you don't feel like he is judging you for your life and decisions.  But how to know more about Him when you can't leave the house to even go to church?

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I have said it before and I will say it again.  I know there are people in the States who feel oppressed, but it is not anything that I had experience with before moving here.  And as I meet people and hear their stories it makes me so desperate to fight for them.  I want them to know that there are options, that they don't have to live in fear and feeling like prisoners in their own homes.  I want them to know Jesus and be able to freely learn about and worship Him.  I want them to know that He is loving and full of forgiveness and grace.

But there are so many obstacles.  I want to tell them that they are options, but it is not always true.  What are their choices?  Where would they go?  Who would help them?  There are no food stamps or homeless shelters... if you don't have money, you just don't eat.  Is being a hungry pregnant woman living on the street worth leaving the man who mistreats you?

A girl I met last week shared her story with me.  She doesn't live with us at PDE and I may never have a chance to love on her again, her life is a mess.  But for a moment I got to sit with her and tell her that her baby is precious and a gift that God has given her.  That Jesus loves her and doesn't judge her for the things that she has done.  That she should fight for the freedom to go to church and know more of the Lord.

PDE gives us a chance to reach girls that have stories like these.  But not all of them.  There are so many that cannot come for one reason or another.  There are those that don't even feel the freedom to make the choice to leave the oppression they are living under to come.  There are those that don't even know what living in a healthy environment would even look like because they have never done it.

But some do come.  They come hurt and broken, rebellious and oh so difficult.  But we want them to have hope!

Do you see why this ministry is important?  I'll be honest... sometimes I'm overwhelmed and I feel like its too much, its too hard.  They have so many issues before they even come.  (see why a psychologist is so important?)

I listened to a sermon this morning that spoke directly to the discouragement that it is so easy to feel in the light of such an overwhelming Spiritual battle.  And I was so encouraged to focus on God's faithfulness.  HE has put this ministry in place.  HE has enabled us to work here.  And HE has already shown us fruit from what He wants to accomplish.  So I look at that faithfulness in the past and remember His promise that He never changes and I trust that He is so much bigger than physical and Spiritual oppression.  His is the victory!

God's People, the Church

As the people of God, the bride of Christ, we are far from perfect.  A few weeks ago I challenged the girls in Bible study to have to come up with an answer to a non-Christian who asks them why the church is so full of sin if these are supposedly God's people.  They really struggled with the answer, and I don't blame them.  Its hard to wrap your head around until you realize that the goal of Christianity is not being perfect and following all of God's rules.  The Lord is so much more concerned with our humility, recognizing our sin, fighting to know more and more of Him, and allowing the Holy Spirit to change us.  And change is hard, and sometimes slow.  And sometimes our sin nature fights awfully hard to hold on to us... but we have hope since we know that Jesus always wins!

But regardless, I love the church.  In spite of all of its imperfection, flawed leadership, and struggles.  I have learned more about Jesus through His people than anywhere else.  Through the teaching of His Word first and foremost, but also through fellow believers.  I have learned so much about grace, patience, hospitality, forgiveness, and and and...

I tell you all of this to say that I think the local church is a huge part of our ministry at Puerta de Esperanza... not because its perfect, but because we need the teaching of the Word and the fellowship with God's people.  And the truth is, its hard to find a good church around here and sometimes I get worried when the girls are off on their own and looking for a church.  But I trust this... God's Word never goes out void, so if they are studying His Word, He will speak to them.

Why am I writing this today?  Well... I am taking one of our new potential girls to church with us tonight to try it and see what she thinks.  She will commit to attend church regularly if she comes to live at the home, so its important for her to see if she will be able to do that.  I hope she falls in love with Jesus, and also with learning about Him in that setting.  AND I talked to M last night, the one who moved back to Tegucigalpa with a chip on her shoulder towards the Lord and told me she was done with Him.  Well, she just can't get Jesus out of her mind and she's been watching pastors on TV and reading her Bible and is going to start looking for a church tomorrow.

So I pray that they will love the church the way I do... in all its imperfections.  That they will love Jesus first and then want to be part of His people worshiping together.

Possibilities

Today I am meeting with two girls who are interested in PDE.  One is about 5 months pregnant and the other has a baby around 1 1/2 or 2 years old.  They are both from the area here in La Ceiba and both have expressed real interest in coming.  I am really asking the Lord for wisdom to know if they are a good fit to come and live with us!  I always enjoy this part of meeting new girls for the first time and starting the process of getting to know them.  But its also hard b/c they tend to say a lot of what they think I want to hear instead of really what is on their hearts.

I also am really burdened about moving them into the home before we have a psychologist to work with us.  I have two leads on potential psychologists, but as of now still haven't gotten to speak to either one of them yet.  Can you please pray with me that God will provide there perfect person to come alongside us in this way?  The need is so great...

Also last week we did a two day training with our house moms and Lyssa and Amy were both able to join us for that time.  It was very Gospel-centered, encouraging us to show the same love, mercy, and grace that we have received from the Lord to these girls as they enter the home.  There are so many situations with them where patience and compassion are so very hard.  But we know that it is worth it to fight to love them well and show them Jesus as much as we can.  I would love to share more later on about what we've learned and how we are going to try to put it into practice.  We also are starting a new chores sheet / budget chart this week with C to see how its going to work out before we get new girls in the house.  Basically we're growing and changing and trying to use what the Lord has taught us over the last few years to make this home even more successful.

Thanks for reading, for caring about this ministry, for your prayers and your partnership!

Money Money Money

One of the hardest parts for me about being a missionary is finances.  Keeping good records of how we spend money, being good stewards of the money that is given to us, raising support, and always the giant step of faith that it takes to not freak out when I look at our account and there just isn't quite enough there.  I think that God has been trying to teach me for four years now that I don't have to stress about money, that freaking out doesn't really help anything :)  Its a hard lesson for me to learn.

But this is me, not freaking out :)  This is me asking you to consider if you can partner with us at this time financially.  We still need 32 supporters at $100/month in order to be fully funded.  This is daunting, but I know that its possible.  And it happens through people like you who give $200/month if you have it, or $20/month if that's what you have.

Would you please consider if this may be the way that God is calling you to answer the Great Commission?  I cannot tell you how thankful we are for our financial partners.  I am so aware that C, Y, G, M, K, B, and M would not have had the chance to hear the Gospel faithfully on a daily basis, study, learn how to be moms, eat healthy, and see the examples of the house moms following Jesus... without your help and support.

Being currently underfunded, every month eats away at the surplus that we had in our account at the beginning of the year.  That will not last us much longer and then we will be in the red if we don't have the monthly support coming in that we need.

If you would like to give you can contact me at ssinnes@gmail.com.  Or use one of the following methods... with our account number 92413

http://www.mtw.org/Pages/GIVE_FAQ.aspx

 or mail a check to

Mission to the World

P.O. Box 2589

Suwanee, GA 30024-0982

Also if you think your church would like to support us or be interested, please send me the missions committee contact and I will gladly be in touch with them!

Good conversation

It was just supposed to be a time for her to learn my name...

Lyssa has had her eye on this girl for a few weeks.  15 years old and 4 months pregnant... she lives with her family, but its rough situation.  Others on our team have had their eyes on this family because of malnutrition, suspected abuse, drug use, and other issues.  You can tell that K is a tough act from the first time you meet her.  I met her about a year ago one day when she was just hanging out with Lyssa, but we didn't know that she would remember me.

I sat down next to her this morning while she waited for her ultrasound.  I made some small talk, asked her about her baby, work, life, her family... and we chatted.  You can tell she wants someone to listen.  Her friendship with Lyssa has been off and on because of her off and on personality, but you can tell that she respects her a great deal.  As we got to talking I shared about Puerta de Esperanza.  I wasn't going to... Lyssa was going to bring it up in a few weeks whenever it seemed natural because she was pretty sure the conversation wouldn't go well.  But as I shared about where I work and what we do, I didn't make it about her, but she said, "I would like to live in a place like that".  Really?  Would you?  

She brought her mom over, we chatted and we'll continue to chat some more.

Please pray for K as she potentially could be our next girl at PDE.  Pray that she has wisdom and really makes a clear-headed decision.  I know that she is a hard personality, both from stories, and because she told me this morning :)  But honestly, I love that up-front honesty so much more than someone who misbehaves when no one is looking.  These are the girls that steal my heart and I want so badly to see God work in them.  After she told me that she can be terrible to her mom and gets angry really quickly I was able to share with her that I believe that God changes us from the inside out and that she needs Jesus before she will be able to stop her anger.  She listened.  I would love for her to one day know Jesus! :)

More than we can Handle

These past few days I've been thinking about that phrase that floats around often in Christian circles... "God will never give you more than you can handle".  I think that it comes, mistakenly, from 1 Corinthians 10:13, "No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it."  This actually doesn't ever say that you will not be given more than you can handle... it just speaks to temptation and that God, through His Holy Spirit, has provided you with the strength that you need to not give in to temptation.  Being a new creation in Christ, you now have the strength to stand up under temptation and endure!  You are no longer a slave to your sin and the temptations that Satan throws your way.There are, however, many other situations in which we will find ourselves overwhelmed and feeling exceptionally unprepared.  The first of which in my life is my very salvation.  As we have been studying through Romans with the girls we have talked a lot about the law and that the very law that would bring life, if you could possibly follow it, really brought death because it showed us how deep our sin really runs and how little we can actually do to try to earn our way to God.  These words from Shane and Shane's song, "Beg" have been running through my head.

I'm haunted by my God
Who has the right to ask me
What by the nature
Of my rebellion I cannot give

From the beginning of our walk with the Lord he gives us something that we cannot handle.  To be in His presence, He demands perfection, holiness... and I, by the nature of my sinful rebellion, will never be able to give that to Him.  So I needed help, a rescuer, and He sent me Jesus.  The first of many things that I could not handle.

How about moving to the mission field and feeling the call to start a girls' home for young single moms when I didn't even speak Spanish?  God gave me something I could not handle and then provided the help that I needed at just the point when I needed it.  He was reminding me that this ministry belonged to Him and not to me, that He is the one that is building it and sustaining it.


How about when my girls, or as I like to call them my emotionally unstable adult children, end up in a shouting match or a punching match or making death threats to each other.  I would like to go on record as saying that I am unprepared to handle discipline with these girls.  I do it every day.  But how do you gracefully, yet lovingly, yet firmly, figure out how to discipline girls who have never had rules in their lives and don't even know the first thing about what is looks like to love and respect someone?  I swear that there are moments where the Holy Spirit just speaks because I go into a situation having no idea what I'm going to say and then its handled by the time I leave.  Another thing on the long list of things I can't handle.


And in my family?  Marrying into being a mom of three children was not something that was on my radar just a few short years ago.  Dealing with their backgrounds and teaching them English and trying to lovingly point them to Jesus day after day.  I obviously can't handle it because there are days that I don't do a very good job.  And yet the Lord is right there reminding me that they are HIS and it is His job to handle it.


So... lets just dispel the myth that we will never have more on our plate than we can handle.  And instead lets embrace the truth that we are never alone to walk through these things on our own strength.  This ministry, my family, my salvation........  these things belong to the Lord.


I will leave you with one of my favorite verses of all time..."He is before ALL things and in HIM all things hold together."  Colossians 1:17

answered prayers

Yesterday I called around checking in on all of our now former PDE girls.  Before M left the home I reminded her that she was taking a Bible with her and although I knew she wasn't interested in the Lord, I was going to pray EVERY DAY that she would see her Bible and God would give her the desire to open it.  Well, when I called her yesterday I talked to her mom for awhile first.  When I asked how she was behaving her mom answered, "I don't know what's in that Bible she brought back with her, but she reads it every day and writes down all kinds of stuff in her notebook."  WHAT?!?  Awesome.  M confirmed that she has been reading verses and writing them down in her notebook to remember them. 

I am so thankful that God is not limited to places and times, but goes with these girls and keeps prompting them towards Himself.  Please pray that M will come to know Jesus.