Unselfish Love



Blanca and I (January 2011)







Hello All,

This past week has been so very good. Thank you all very much for the prayers and support and love and kindness. After struggling through much of last week, I finally reached a breaking point where I realized such a simple truth--we don't battle against flesh and blood. When I took hold of this truth, the way that I dealt with various difficulties in the house changed; I saw it much more as a spiritual problem rather than a mundane difficulty. I was much more able to let the girls know what I was and wasn't willing to tolerate, and we didn't have any more problems. It's not that the lying stopped--it didn't--but my attitude in the midst of it was much better, much more spiritually prepared. Once again, this time has been another example of how God is bringing to pass Isaiah 41 in my life:
I will strengthen you and harden you to difficulties, yes, I will help you; yes, I will hold you up and retain you with My [victorious] right hand of rightness and justice.I am learning the great importance of knowing who I am in Christ. When I know my worth deeply, the opinions of others, the rejection of others, the criticism of others, my own failures, and the deception of others doesn't matter. As a child of God, it is enough that I am being obedient to Him and that He is pleased with me, and even when I fail, it is still enough that His love is not based on my success. I am currently reading a book by Henri Nouwen called Home Tonight, and it's pretty good so far. Two passages that really stuck out to me when I was reading the other day are:
I have to touch and be touched from the place of my belovedness more than from the place of my need. (40).
. . . it is possible to experience goodness, friendship, and affection without my whole life becoming dependent upon it. It is also possible to feel rejected and abandoned without being destroyed. There's nothing as painful as being rejected, but if it is lived against the background of the first love, it becomes possible to survive. (46).
I have known for a long time that no other human being can fill the void that exists within each of us only for God. No friend, no family member, no significant other will ever be able to touch the darkest and loneliest places of our hearts--those spaces are reserved only for the brilliant light of the Father's love. Yet, knowing this fact logically and growing to a place where my will, my character, my thoughts, and my life are conformed to this spiritual truth are two different things--the latter is an ongoing process with the Lord. It has been my prayer for many years that God would teach me how to love with His perfect, unconditional, unselfish love. I recognize the importance of motivations. It's not enough for our love to appear pure. It really must be a fountain that springs from the Father if it is to bear any fruit in the lives of others. I am grateful for the loneliness because being deprived of human companionship brings me deeper into the heart of the Father and teaches me to rely on Him to fill my need for love and acceptance rather than expecting any human to do so. Thus, I have been reminded of who needs to hold my undivided attention, who needs to captivate my heart, and who deserves the uninterrupted gaze of my eyes--only Jesus. When our eyes are on our circumstances, our loneliness, or our pain, they aren't on Jesus, and we nurture self-pity and selfishness.

A prime example of a wake up call for me in this regard came Sunday. I spent the afternoon by myself at the house because the girls were at Alvin's house for the day. While it was nice to be released from responsibility, I was still rather nursing the wound of loneliness. When I emerged from my room into the living room, God reminded me of where my eyes need to be by bringing me my little friend, Doe, to come visit me. Doe is our 11-year-old neighbor. He is so precious. He lives in a cement building beside our house with his mother, his older sister, and his younger sister. His father died about two years ago. He was murdered while his mother was pregnant with his younger sister. Doe is often home alone or with his sisters because his mother works to provide for their family. He comes to visit me often, even when the girls aren't here, and we'll talk about whatever stories he wants to tell me, or he'll watch television here or watch me make bread or clean. When Doe came on Sunday, I asked him what he was doing, and he said, "Nothing." I asked him where his family was. "They're in the house." "Your friends?" He laughed and said quietly, "I don't have any friends." "You don't have any friends at all? Not the neighbor boys?" "Well, I do have two friends. One is a boy and the other is a girl." He told me about the little boy who he's friends with, and then, when I asked where his friend who is a girl lives, he said, "Here." He laughed, and I realized that I am one of two friends that this sweet little boy has. Here I am sad over feeling alone when I'm one of the few friends this little guy has. If my eyes remain on myself and what I feel I'm lacking, will I ever see Jesus in the Does of this world, the others who are lonely and waiting for a friend? No, probably not. This small reminder has stuck with me all week and completely opened my eyes and changed my attitude.

Yesterday, Roy and I drove Blanca back home to her grandmother in Nacaome. She finished school yesterday, and Alvin told us that it was time for her to leave. So, we drove the roughly two hours there and spent some time with her family. Blanca didn't want to leave, and she and Quendy were very sad. Blanca's family is very poor. Blanca will be living with her grandmother in a home that they built themselves out of mud bricks and some wood. They sleep in hammocks and have a dirt floor. When Roy asked them what they had for Christmas, the grandmother said, "Nothing." Traditionally here, for Christmas, Hondurans make nacatamales which are a kind of tamale filled with all kinds of filling, including meat. But, meat in that area is too expensive for them. My heart hurt, and I longed to help (even as I only had 18 lemps in my pocket at the time) as we listened to her aunt tell us of how hard she has to work and how frustrated she is that she feels that Blanca has thrown her opportunities away. We tried to patiently explain that the house closed for many reasons, and furthermore, depending on Blanca's behavior there, she may be able to come back to the city to live in another house run by another ministry to continue studying. Right now, it is the long break for schools here, and truthfully, Blanca needs a time of tough love. She needs to be reminded of what she has been granted here, and as the saying goes, you often don't know what you have until it's gone. While it is difficult for both her and us (because we love her), we want to demonstrate the love of the Father, which is both merciful but also disciplines us like the children we are.

I was grateful that Roy was there for this conversation with Blanca's family because he is able to reach his fellow Hondurans in a way that I'll never be able to do so. As Blanca's aunt was telling us how hard she's had to struggle, I felt helpless to say anything comforting--even though I fully believe the truth of Isaiah 58, which according to The Message, says that God can give us a full life in the emptiest of places. (If I didn't believe that truth, I wouldn't have moved to Honduras. I wouldn't be so dedicated to the idea of downward mobility and the idea that if Jesus descended to live like us, that we should be willing to live like others to reach them with His love, regardless of poverty, danger, or whatever. It's about being eternally-minded rather than earthly-minded.) I truly believe that He is enough, but that is very easy for me to say, being a gringa from wealthy North America who has never endured what these people have. I always want to be sensitive to when it is possible for others to receive messages of truth and hope from me and when I need to be quiet so that someone else can share their truths and experiences. This was definitely a time where it was much better to be quiet because Roy started sharing the story of his family--how he comes from a family of six kids and a single mother who sacrificed and worked hard so that all of them could be fed and have an education. All of them graduated from high school, and the youngest, Waldina, will graduate from university in December. Listening to Roy, I was so proud of who he is and so grateful for who God has created him to be even in the midst of every difficulty he has endured. God is faithful, and Roy's life is a prime example that God is truly in control, and Blanca's life is not over. With Christ, all things are possible, but we have to learn to submit to Him, to give Him all of our lives. I so hope and pray that this season is a time where Blanca learns to draw near to the Father. Please join with me in praying for Blanca during this time.

With yesterday being Thanksgiving (they don't celebrate it here) and with the fact that my last entry expressed some of my difficulties, I also wanted to let you know just how thankful I am to be here. Yesterday on the car ride home, Roy and I were practicing some English--he understands so much, and he is getting so much better at speaking! I asked him, "Are you happy?" He said, "Yes, I am very happy. Are you happy?" I smiled and said, "Yes, I am very happy." Then he surprised me by saying in English, "Why?" I had to laugh and then said, "Because I am in Honduras." Then he switched to Spanish and said, "Is that the only reason?" I laughed again and said no, of course not, and asked if he wanted to hear all of the reasons why. "Of course." I thought about it for a while and then had to say, "I don't know how to answer because I am happy about everything," because the truth is that God is so good to me. When we finally reach that place where we know we are in God's will, where we trust that God loves us, and we're dedicated to waiting for His best, it doesn't matter what does or doesn't happen because we can trust the truth of Romans 8:28:
We are assured and know that [God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose.
I am so thankful that I get to wake up every morning in this place that captured my heart so long ago. I am so blessed to be right where God wants me. I am grateful for my supportive friends and family both in the US and here. I give thanks for the lessons I am learning, for the struggles God is bringing me through, and for even the loneliness I experience because I know that God is teaching me to love unselfishly and to touch others from a place of belovedness rather than out of need or expecting anything in return. Papí Alvin recently texted me thanking me for being here and for doing what he needed me to do in staying here in the house with the girls, and when I was thinking of how to respond, I realized what a pleasure it all truly is. It is always a pleasure to be obedient to God because whatever I endure makes me more like Jesus, and that makes it all worth it. Now, I'm just waiting for whatever it is that God has next.

Lots of love,
Sarah



Old school picture of Roy Boy and I (January 2011)...we're both very happy! ;)



Whatever's in front of me, help me to sing hallelujah



My family for the past two and a half months (minus Raúl and Nahum)...

Hello All,

It has been quite a roller coaster since I last updated. On November 16, Sara and Sally left to move to Nicaragua. This past week has been very difficult for me. I am generally pretty positive, especially with anything that I send out into the world of the internet, but I don't want you to get the idea that life here is always easy--it isn't. I am constantly learning, and a lot of times, that learning is through struggle.

One of the biggest struggles that I have is in part due to my personality. I grew up being very much a perfectionist, especially in school work. Now, I'm less of a perfectionist, but I always have much higher expectations for myself than anyone else has for me, which also means that when I fail, I'm much harder on myself than anyone else is on me. For this reason, I tend to be overly sensitive to criticism. In this environment, all of these facts about myself are amplified. Being a gringa, everything I do is under a microscope--the way I cook, eat, speak, drive, everything. There are lots of gringos (North Americans) who live here and whose behavior gives all gringos a bad reputation. Oftentimes, I feel like I can't win, that I can't do anything right. Just as there is an unspoken code of conduct in every culture, there are unspoken rules or tendencies of the Honduran culture that I don't know because I haven't lived here that long. I'm always learning, which is good, but I often feel like the odds are against me since I already have to fight the bad image that people from the US often have. For someone who doesn't like to draw a lot of unnecessary attention and doesn't like to be a burden for anyone, it is a very stretching condition. When I was growing up, I was a pretty quiet, independent kid. I was the kind of kid that didn't like to ask for help and would let my shoes hurt my feet for months before I told my parents that I had outgrown them simply because I didn't want to be a burden. Because of these attitudes, there were often times where I needed help in schoolwork while being homeschooled or should've shared my struggles of being a kid but didn't. My stubborn independence and the constant assumption that I was mature for my age often left me feeling alone unnecessarily. I rather feel like that younger version of myself now. I've grown accustomed to Honduran life and the Spanish language enough to be more or less independent and left alone but that doesn't always mean that I couldn't use the help and friendship of others. An example of this recently was that Roy and I went to the immigration office to turn in my residency paperwork. He told me to ask the lady up front for directions. I did, but I didn't understand one word that she said (all it takes is one important word, and I'm lost). I wasn't worried, though, because I knew Roy had heard her directions too. So, I walked a few steps, stopped, and waited for him to guide me. Instead, he said (almost with a sense of frustration), "Sarah, what did the lady tell you?" I repeated what she said and then explained that I didn't know one of the words. He directed me to where to go and soon after approached me to say, "Sarah, I have to apologize to you. I need to have patience with you. I'm sorry. In my mind, you already understand almost everything in Spanish, so when you act like you're confused or you don't follow instructions, I don't understand what's wrong. I forget that you are still learning, so please forgive me for my lack of patience." I was grateful for this apology because I do often struggle with giving myself the freedom to fail, and when others don't give me the freedom to fail, it makes it a million times worse. It's a constant struggle for me to remember that I only have one person to please--Jesus, not even myself (especially not myself, because I could never live up to my own expectations).

In the midst of this ongoing battle with myself, Sara and Sally's leaving has been especially difficult. I am a very family-oriented person. I am the oldest of three, so I stayed at home a lot to take care of my siblings. I wasn't one to be running around with lots of friends growing up. Now, I tend to be a home body, and I can adapt to pretty much any new situation when I find a sense of family--biological or adopted--where I can let my guard down and rest comfortably. I had already developed a relationship with Sara and Sally and the girls over the years, so finding a sense of family when I first got here was pretty easy. With them leaving, I have felt rather lost. Unlike all of the other missionaries here, I have no one to go home to, no consistent sense of safety in another human being. I, of course, still have Quendy and Raúl and Nahum (and even Roy sometimes), but I have lost my primary protectors, comforters, confidants, my adopted mother, and my adopted aunt. This has resulted in much crying this week, but I'm a relatively emotional person, so perhaps, that's nothing new. On Tuesday, Roy and I went to the immigartion office for a second time. Then we headed to do some errands that he needed to do. While I was sitting on a bench, waiting for him, I found myself overwhelmed with loneliness and just heaviness of loss and feeling lost. I just started telling God (probably for the millionth time) how lonely I was, the pain I was feeling, etc. I am here out of obedience. I am here because I know that God sent me here, that He prepared me for years to come here. I'm not here for any other reason. Sometimes, there is no logical, apparent reason for my being here. But because of my desire to be obedient, I don't often even question the reason for being here. Even if I'm the most useless and solitary missionary, I know that God has a purpose for my being here, that even when I can't see, He is doing the work. So, I trust Him even as I cry and struggle. As I was having difficulty maintaining my composure while sitting on this bench, the young mother who was sitting across from me came over and sat down. I didn't know her and had never met or seen her before.

She said, "The Holy Spirit told me to come talk to you. He showed me that you have a spirit of loneliness all over you. He told me that you left everything--your home and friends and family--to come here. He wants you to know that you're not alone. You didn't make an error in coming here. Sometimes we have to go through difficulties, but God always has a purpose. Keep coming to Him with the difficulties because when you ask for His help, He is listening and working on your behalf. You are not alone." By this time, I was crying, of course, because I was so blessed that God sent a total stranger to send me such a timely message, one that I hadn't even demanded or even dared to ask for. I was prepared to endure with no answer from Him. I was so blessed by this woman's obedience. God does know what He is doing. He is working even when I can't see, and in the mean time, He is preparing me for whatever it is that He has next.

One of those preparations has been this week--probably one of the most trying weeks I've ever had in Honduras. (And it continues next week.) Sara and Sally had already bought their bus/plane tickets to leave before we knew when Blanca was going to finish school. She doesn't finish until the middle of next week. Thus, I was the one who was left with the responsibility of taking care of Quendy and Blanca until Blanca is done school. Once she is done, Quendy and I can move up to the apartment, and Raúl will stay to take care of this house until they make it into a home for boys. I was overwhelmed for days about having to take on this responsibility. We have had so many problems with lying and stealing in this house that I didn't feel like I could handle being the only one responsible for the girls. But, in the midst of feeling so ill-equipped and inadequate, I found solace in a Bethany Dillon song called "Hallelujah":

Who can hold the stars and my weary heart?

Who can see everything?

I've fallen so hard, sometimes I feel so far

But not beyond your reach

I could climb a mountain

Swim the ocean or do anything

But it's when you hold me that I start unfolding

All I can say is

Hallelujah, hallelujah

Whatever's in front of me

I'll choose to sing hallelujah

Oh, hallelujah, hallelujah

Whatever's in front of me,

I'll choose to sing hallelujah

The same sun rises over castles

And welcomes the day

Spills over buildings into the streets

Where orphans play

And only you can see the good

In broken things

You took my heart of stone and you made it home

And set this prisoner free

Hallelujah, hallelujah

Whatever's in front of me,

Help me to sing hallelujah

This week has been wildly difficult. I was given a large house and family (of two teenage girls and Raúl) to take care of overnight. In some ways, I have embraced the opportunity to be a homemaker. I enjoy packing Raúl's lunch, cooking for my little family, making banana bread to sell, making guava jelly (for the first time) from guavas from Roy's family's garden, doing laundry, and making sure we have everything we need in the house. What has been difficult has been keeping track of the girls. They both have no problem lying to my face, and there is nothing that pains my heart more than lying. For someone who so needs a sense of family where it's possible to let the guard down and be safe, it has been exhausting living with these girls. If I have learned nothing else this week, it is that I never want to be a single mother because constantly having to be alert, guarded, and discerning all by myself has brought me to tears every day. I will say, however, that it has been a new opportunity to depend even more on God. I have developed so much wisdom in the two and a half months I've lived here. God has taught me numerous lessons about how to love and what love looks like in the face of constant manipulation. I have had to realize my necessity to go deeper into the heart of Jesus and to remember who I am in Him. I am a very soft-hearted person. Lying and manipulation is such a deep betrayal to me that it is very hard for me to let it go and not just withdraw into myself and emotionally shut down. I find myself angry at how much I am hurt by these girls who can hug me and shower me with compliments and love like they're my sisters and then in the next moment lie to my face. Even this morning as I was telling God how much I don't like about myself that I have an inability to protect myself and not internalize this betrayal, I heard Him say yet again, "But I like the way you are." Thankfully, today, I was granted a break as the girls went to spend the afternoon with a couple from our church. All I could say to God last night was, "Please, just let me have a little break. Enough to recharge." And, in His wonderful sweetness, He gave me just that. He so amazingly knows exactly what I need when I need it, often even when I don't know what I need.

Please keep me in your prayers that God would continuously grant me patience and endurance and that He would harden me to difficulty. As I often used to joke with Sara and Sally, God must have something big in store for the future with all of the patience and endurance He's cultivating within me now. Please also keep the girls in your prayers. I remember being their ages. Adolescence is not easy by any means, but it is made infinitely more difficult by one's own insistence to rebel, lie, steal, and run from God and real love. I do believe that God can always change someone's heart, but it breaks my own that oftentimes He must do so the hard way.

Lots of love,

Sarah



Catracha!

Hello All,


Well, tomorrow marks two months that I have lived here, and it's been a while since I've updated. First of all, I will happily say that less than two months after starting the process, I received my Honduran residency yesterday! I am so thankful and so blessed by how much quicker I received it than I expected--although realistically I've waited four and half years in all for this privilege. So, all I have left to do is get my carnet/ID card at Immigration although the Hondurans here all say that to really be a catracha, I need to let myself burn a whole lot more and eat a lot more baleadas. Ha ha.



It is unbelievable to me that I have only been here two months mainly because I still haven't surpassed the maximum time I lived here before, yet so much has happened and changed in such a short span of time. The Eagle's Nest will close by the end of this month (perhaps sooner depending on how impending decisions evolve). I have been hesitant to update because with the way that things change so quickly, anything that I say could very easily change. So, all decisions are more or less tentative right now. When the house closes, Quendy and I will move to the apartment adjacent to Alvin's house that is below the team bunkhouse. I am grateful that I'll have her, and I pray that it will work out to be beneficial for both of us. I am thankful that I won't have to live completely alone, and the hope for Quendy is that I can provide enough of a sense of family and stability as a big sister while still giving her increased responsibility and independence since she already is approaching 18-years-old. The tentative plan is that Blanca will return home with her family for the holidays and perhaps will return to live with Chad and Trina. Kimberly is set to live with Chad and Trina, which will be very good for her as Trina hopes to homeschool her. Trina is a teacher herself, and Kimberly could so use the one-on-one attention as she is 11-years-old and does not know how to read or write. Meanwhile, Tía and Mamí are ready to go and excitedly await their new adventure. I will miss them more than I can express. We have such a wonderful time together, and I have learned so much from these two very strong women. I have been so blessed by the time we've had together, and I will definitely be keeping up with them while they're in Nicaragua. Of course, I'll have to visit at some point too.

It's been a busy couple of weeks. We had two doctors here for a few days, so we had three straight days of clinics at the church, at Feeding Center #2, and in a small village called El Vino south of Tegus. The brothers, Dr. Craig and Dr. Jerry, were such wonderful blessings. I loved their low maintenance and adventurous attitudes and senses of humor as they served. Even though it was a lot of work with little rest for three days, working with them was so much fun. We happily anticipate when they will be returning. One thing I've learned during my many durations of time in Honduras is that it is absolutely amazing how quickly one can get attached to someone else. That's the way it tends to be in serving together--sometimes, God brings people into your life who just automatically share the same heart. Some of my dearest friends--both North Americans and Hondurans--have resulted from very quick encounters and God moments. I was re-reading some journal entries not too long ago and was reminded of a concept found in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book, The Cost of Discipleship--the idea that Jesus is the Mediator of all of our relationships. And, really, this is a true and very refreshing thought. I am so grateful for who He has brought and continues to bring into my life and how He mediates all of my relationships with other humans.

This past week, we also had a team of seven guys here from Missouri. They did some construction work on the feeding centers and also helped Roy prepare some beams for the house he has been building. They were a very hard-working group and easy to get along with; I'm always grateful for people with whom you can joke, regardless of any language barrier. Even though we are always grateful for the work that teams do, what never ceases to strike me is that more than the walls built or murals painted, what endures are the relationships made between people in our ministry here, Hondurans, and volunteers from the US and other parts of the world. The teams who tend to return and who really allow Honduras to become a part of who they are generally are the ones who actively seek to build relationships during their stay.

During the time that the team was here, we went to the juvenile delinquent centers. The boys were on lockdown due to a riot that had happened a few days earlier. Marvin, one of the workers from our church, actually saved a couple of boys from being killed. The girls were free to visit, however, and I was happy to see them again. One girl, Pamela, who had been there when I came in January, had returned yet again for her second time there. She is only 12-years-old. She was placed back at Sagrado Corazón because she set something on fire at Casitas Kennedy (the orphanage). Girls there often do that to escape the orphanage and to go to the juvenile delinquent center. While I won't go into detail about Pamela's struggles, I will ask you to pray for her. I am always so blessed when someone here trusts me enough to share their burdens, and Pamela's pain broke my heart. Please keep her and the rest of the girls in your prayers.

Meanwhile, my own little life here continues. Sometimes, especially when teams are here, I'm very busy. Other times, it feels like I have nothing to do or that I'm just waiting on someone to give me a new job or task. I am once again learning to recognize that God often works in those times when I personally feel the least productive. He reminds me of how important relationships are and how He works through the smallest smiles and quickest prayers. So, when I have free time, I often visit with my boys at Raúl's business, and I have gotten in the habit of going with the boys (Raúl and Roy) whenever they play soccer in the neighborhood. Once again, I'm the only girl there (and a blond-haired gringa at that), but I love that Raúl invites me to go and that I can share in their favorite pasttime. They often come to the house after the game, and I enjoy feeding them, bringing them water, etc. as they compare notes and share laughter over the game. I love my boys very much and am so grateful for the sense of family they have provided me. With Sara and Sally leaving soon, having the boys is increasingly a comfort.

Many changes are in process, and in the midst of the shifting, I have once again found comfort in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah is one of my favorite books of the Bible, so it's hard to say any particular chapter or verse that strikes me most, but this one is pretty relevant for the time being:

Isaiah 43:19
Behold, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive and know it and will you not give heed to it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
Thank you so much for reading, for your prayers, and for your support!

Love,
Sarah



Pamela in January at the juvenile delinquent center