Feliz Año Nuevo!
I had a wonderful New Year’s with the Rovelo family. For those of you who have never been to Honduras at New Year’s Eve, it is quite exciting. The Rovelo family tradition is to have a dinner around midnight, have a “secret friend” gift exchange, and light the “old man” on fire exactly at midnight. The Old Man is full of fireworks and is made of old clothes. They pour gasoline on him and light him on fire. He burns until all that is left is ashes. The old man symbolizes the old year, and obviously, there are numerous spiritual connections that could be made with this Honduran tradition. Needless to say, I enjoyed my New Year’s immensely and spent it with a family who has stolen my heart. I stayed overnight at Roy’s grandmother’s house and then spent the following day with Roy’s immediate family—looking at the house Roy’s building, listening to music with Richard (who has a broken leg right now), looking at clothes with Mami Sonia, talking to Walter, running errands with Raúl, joking with Waldina, and visiting with Nahum. After Raúl took me home, sitting in my apartment reflecting on the evening, all I could do was laugh cry with joy. I feel so blessed to know this precious family and to feel so accepted by them. They carry such a spirit of adoption that blesses my heart more than I can express, and I love each one of them dearly.
Quendy Update
Although Quendy left a note saying that she was going to return to live with her mom, we later heard word that she is still living in our neighborhood (with her boyfriend), and she is not pregnant. She stopped in the apartment to retrieve some of her clothes. While she was here, she and I had a couple of brief moments to talk about why she left, where she was living, where she is working, etc. This child is so confused that it truly is as she told Papi Alvin in her letter—she doesn’t know how to tell the truth any more. In the course of our conversation, she said two or three contradictory things about who she is living with, whether or not she has a boyfriend, etc. She is working in the home of an elderly lady, and she says that this woman pays her well. Meanwhile, I recently received a text from Blanca saying that she was headed to Olancho and would be passing through Tegucigalpa on her way. She was in Villa Vieja with Quendy for a couple days. While I never saw her, she did send me a text saying that she was moving to Olancho to live with an aunt because her grandmother died. But, when she and Quendy went to visit Raúl, she told him something completely different, that the reason she was leaving was due to abusive treatment by her father. So, while I’d love to tell you that everything is very concrete and that I know exactly how the girls are doing, where they are, etc., I am just as in the dark as anyone else. The girls always had the liberty to leave the Eagle’s Nest whenever they wanted to return to live with family or to some other living situation arranged by MEH; they were never forced to be there. Thus, each one has made her choice, and we trust that God is in control of circumstances and of the seeds that have been planted in their lives.
A couple days ago, God reminded me of something that I had forgotten. Over a year ago, my second-to-last semester of college was one of the easiest I had. I no longer was working three jobs and was taking fewer credit hours—all of which were things that I felt God had led me to do. Thus, I had much more time on my hands. During that semester, I ran nearly every day, and as I ran, I prayed—often prompted by the music I was listening to as for whom I was supposed to pray. During this semester, every time that God led me to pray for the girls from the Eagle’s Nest was when the song “Runaway Love” by Ludicrous and Mary J. Blige came on. It’s not that great of a song, and some of the messages it sends are ideas with which I don’t agree. However, I like the song precisely because it reminds me of street kids and runaways I’ve met. I thought it odd, though, that God brought to mind the girls from the Eagle’s Nest because really very few of them were runaways. The majority of them we came across because they were in the IHNFA (child services) system. But, every time this song came on while I was running the track, I obediently prayed for my girls. How amazing is God that He knew even a year prior that all but one (Kimberli) of the girls were going to be runaways. Even though I have had continued peace throughout this entire situation, with that realization, I felt even more at rest because God gave me a foreshadowing of what was to come and led me to pray in a certain way for situations that hadn’t even come to pass yet. He is in control. He is the only one who sees the bigger picture, and we will be much more effective for His Kingdom if we live not according to the circumstances we see but according to His leading and His vision of the spiritual realm.
Spanish Silliness
Learning a new language is always a continued process and an adventure. While I have reached a point where I can communicate myself without too many obstacles (words here and there that I don’t know trip me up) and can understand at least the general idea of what is spoken to me (when I’m focusing), that lack of vocabulary still makes for some pretty hilarious moments. For those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, you might recall my Mejor Galleta en Todo el Mundo moment (http://confessionsofaragamuffin.blogspot.com/2010/06/best-cookie-ive-ever-had.html). Well, I had another one of those moments the other day. A couple weeks ago, Roy and I went grocery shopping. He was in a hurry, and I didn’t want to make him wait, so I was trying to hurry as well. I knew I didn’t have any meat, so I saw a special on chicken of some sort. I knew the word “pollo” was chicken, and it looked like pieces of chicken breast meat. I didn’t know the other word on the package, but I was in a hurry, so I figured I’d take advantage of the price. I brought it home and stuck it in the freezer. A few days ago, I wanted to make something with this chicken, so I thawed it. When I opened the package, all I could think was, “What did I purchase?” I reviewed the word on the package and looked up the word I still didn’t know—gizzards. I had bought gizzards. Hondurans will eat any part of a chicken. They do not waste. I still get picked on by Hondurans because they say that every time I eat chicken, I’m still leaving behind parts that are edible. When Hondurans eat chicken, they suck on the bones, so the only part left is the hard pieces of the bones. So, I wasn’t about to waste this meat that I knew my boys—Raúl and Cristian—would eat. So, after a couple of funny phone calls to both of my parents, I just ended up asking Nelly how to cook them. I followed her directions, and they turned out well enough that my boys did, in fact, eat them all happily. I’m always learning and always laughing here.
A Heart at Rest
Recently I was reading in Zechariah, and I will just share some of the verses that stood out for me in this time and place:
from Zechariah 2:
Sing and rejoice, O Daughter of Zion; for behold, I come and I will dwell in the midst of you, says the Lord. And many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day and shall be My people. And I will dwell in the midst of you, and you shall know (recognize and understand) that the Lord of hosts has sent me [His messenger] to you.
from Zechariah 3:
Thus says the Lord of hosts: If you will walk in My ways and keep My charge, then also you shall rule My house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you access [to My presence] and places to walk among these who stand there. . . . and I will remove the iniquity and guilt of this land in a single day.
from Zechariah 4:
Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit . . . says the Lord of hosts. For who are you, O great mountain [of human obstacles]? . . . you shall become a plain [a mere molehill]! . . . Who [with reason] despises the day of small things?
from Zechariah 6:
Yes, [you are building a temple of the Lord but] it is He Who shall build the [true] temple of the Lord, and He shall bear the honor and glory [as of the only begotten of the Father] and shall sit and rule upon His throne. . . . And [your part in this] shall come to pass if you will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God.
from Zechariah 8:
For there shall the seed produce peace and prosperity; the vine shall yield her fruit and the ground shall give its increase and the heavens shall give their dew; and I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit and possess all these things. . . . Fear not, but let your hands be strong and hardened. . . . Thus says the Lord of hosts: It shall yet come to pass that there shall come [to Jerusalem] peoples and the inhabitants of many and great cities, and the inhabitants of one city shall go to them of another, saying, let us go speedily to pray and entreat the favor of the Lord and to seek, inquire of, and require [to meet our own most essential need] the Lord of hosts. I will go also. Yes, many people and strong nations shall come to Jerusalem to seek, inquire of, and require [to fill their own urgent need] the Lord of hosts and to pray to the Lord for His favor.
from Zechariah 10:
And I will strengthen [Israel] in the Lord, and they shall walk up and down and glory in His name, says the Lord.
from Zechariah 13:
And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined and will test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, and I will hear and answer them. I will say, It is My people; and they will say, the Lord is My God.
I feel so blessed that God has allowed me to be here. It is only His grace and His provision that allows me to stay in this place that I love so much with a people who I love so much. The first question I always receive from other North American missionaries, from teams who come, and occasionally (although not often) from Hondurans, is, “What do you do here?” My response generally is to laugh because I don’t really feel like I “do” anything. My life is very small, and my heart is merely to be obedient and to give God my time every day. I don’t have a very set job description. I don’t have any projects. And I don’t feel released to go into a frenzy of action right now. I can sense that right now, this time, is preparation for something to come. So my heart is at rest. God can do with me whatever He pleases. I am here to serve and be humbled, tested and refined, patient and waiting for His timing. He will be the one to give access to His presence—it can’t be earned. While sometimes, it seems as though circumstances keep getting worse, I often remind myself that God has the power as it says here in Zechariah to remove all of the iniquity of a land in a single day. If I am being obedient to Him today, that is what matters regardless of results in the natural. God will have His way according to His timing. Thus, I have no desire to do anything in my own might. There are many things that I could do while I am here just as there are so many things that each one of us could do with our lives—a myriad of options are present for us in the realm of jobs, spouses, hobbies, and the like. But there is only one life that is going to bring fruit and that is going to have eternal value, and that is a life of obedience to His Spirit. Right now, what I feel like God keeps telling me is, “Don’t be a doer; be a seeker.”With love,
Sarah
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| Raúl and I at his grandmother's house on New Year's Eve |
