Our Love Story

Merry Christmas!

*Disclaimer in advance: This is probably going to be a long story and thus, long post. But, because it’s obviously one of my favorite stories, I’m going to write it anyway. If you want to read it all, you are more than welcome.

When I was about eight-years-old, I had a dream where I was talking to God in a blank, open space. I looked up at my Papa God and said, “God, I want to see my husband.” So, Jesus took my hand, smiled, and opened some kind of door. That dark blank space transformed into a warm, sunny place. I couldn’t explain it, but I knew it was somewhere far from where I lived. And that’s when Jesus pointed him out. I couldn’t really discern the details of his face, but he had a big smile. His hair and skin were darker than mine, and he was climbing a tree. It’s not often that I remember my dreams, but that one has stuck with me since I was a kid.

I first met Raúl Ramírez when I was 18, my second time in Honduras in August of 2007. My family and I had come on a short-term trip, and Alvin Anderson was showing us the bunkhouse Raúl and a family friend were building for future teams. He was down below us in the foundation of the bunkhouse working with a mess of cement (building the apartment I would later live in). At that point, though I’d had some Spanish classes in high school, I was lucky if I could say and understand the most basic of words. Raúl doesn’t remember this meeting. I can’t blame him, though, with how many North American and Danish chicks go through Alvin and Nelly’s house on a regular basis.

The second time Raúl and I interacted was two years later. He doesn’t remember this meeting either. In the summer of 2009, I was again in Honduras for my summer vacation from college. I had become friends with Raúl’s brother who worked for Alvin. He had suggested that we walk down to see Raúl’s business. Raúl started his own business in 2006, selling oil for cars on the side of the road on a piece of property that he bought. (He later started changing and repairing tires and then having an inventory of used tires of every size to sell. His business is now triple or quadruple what it was when I first saw it.) Business was slow when we found him, so I sat down and tried to talk. My Spanish was definitely better than it was in 2007, but I was still learning. Raúl is always outgoing and friendly, so he was quick to make conversation. He was trying to tell me where he was from, but I didn’t capture that he was trying to tell me the formal name of a place. I thought it was some vocabulary word I just didn’t know. Patience isn’t Raúl’s strong point, so he just ended up yelling, “Tatumbla!” at me. I was trying to understand, but I was at a loss. When Raúl’s brother came back over to sit down, Raúl just looked at him and said, “I can’t talk to her. She can’t communicate in Spanish,” which, of course, I did understand.

Other than that encounter, we only spent time together that summer one other time. I was walking in our neighborhood alone in the evening, and Raúl was headed out with a friend to take one of the ladies who cooked for the teams, home. Nubia, the cook, lives out in the middle of nowhere. As Raúl passed me, he said, “Hey, come with us!” So, I did. We ended up staying a while at Nubia’s house as she insisted in typical Honduran hospitality that we stay for tortillas with cheese and fruit popsicles. As we were going to town on our popsicles, Raúl and his friend were asking me questions. Raúl slyly asked me, “Would you ever marry a Honduran?” And, I answered that I was willing to marry whomever God had for me regardless of where he was from. With a grin, Raúl quipped, “Well, that’s what I need then, a girl just like you.” He does actually remember that moment.

When I left Honduras that summer, Raúl, always the gift-giver (as is very common in Honduran culture among men and women alike), gave me a watch. Ironically enough, that summer, God really highlighted the verse in Zechariah 4:10 that says, “Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin…” And, I can’t help but wonder if God didn’t smile as Raúl gave me a gift symbolic of time.

The following summer, I again, returned to Honduras. Raúl and I didn’t interact much that summer either. But, at the end of the summer, he again gave me a gift—a giant, cubic zirconium ring. Do you ever wonder if God enjoys His own foreshadowing? I happen to think He’s the best story teller there is.

That same year, I went back to Honduras for New Year’s. I honestly don’t remember seeing Raúl at all during that trip. But, after I went back to the States, he got my phone number from his brother and started texting me. While they were sweet messages, I wasn’t really sure what he was after. Then, he called. If any of you have learned a second language, you know that speaking/hearing it over the phone is so much more difficult than in person, especially when you aren’t too familiar with the voice. Raúl also uses a lot of slang, so I had the hardest time trying to understand him. But, at the same time, it was a ray of sunshine in my day every time he contacted me because it made my homesick heart feel connected to Honduras. After a while, though, because he was calling me “princess [of God, because if you’re going to try to hit on a lady as a Christian, if you use the “of God,” if she corners you on your motives, you can always say you call everyone that…I’m on to this trick]” and just being overly sweet when we didn’t really know each other, I finally asked him what his motives were. And, the messages stopped without a reply. Around this time, Raúl’s previous relationship, which had become very tumultuous over the years, had ended in a damaging way, and I think he was just looking for a refuge. But, God wasn’t joking with that gift of time.

One night, after I’d already bought my one-way plane ticket to move to Honduras, Raúl’s brother called me. He was out with Raúl and some other friends. I was excitedly explaining about the one-way ticket, and Raúl’s brother was telling everyone he was with. I could hear Raúl yelling in the background. He said, “Tell Sarah that when she comes, we’re going to be great friends!” I laughed, probably said “okay,” and thought, “Yeah, I really doubt that.”

When I moved to Honduras months later, I lived in a refuge home for teenage girls that Alvin Anderson had started under his ministry, Manos Extendidas. That is where I planned to live long-term in order to help the ladies who lived there and took care of the girls. Raúl had already established himself as their big brother and came by often to help around the house or just to visit. Raúl was around a lot. He would stop in at the house late at night, and I’d serve him some food and just listen while he talked. He helped me paint the room I was planning on making my own. And, we soon became the great friends that he said we would be. One day, the ladies in charge of the home, Tía Sally and Tía Sara, pulled me aside and told me that Alvin had decided to close the home. I had only been living there two months! And I had just filed for five-year Honduran residency. Because Tía Sara is from Nicaragua, they planned to start a ministry in Nicaragua and invited me to come. But, while I loved them and the sense of family I had with them, I knew my call was to Honduras. That night, as I lay down to go to sleep, I desperately told God, “Please don’t take away my Honduran family. Please let me be able to stay with my Honduran family.” The next day, Raúl invited me to a big family function. His grandmother was having a birthday. So, I went, and the uncles all wanted to know which brother I was going to marry. Sometimes, God answers prayers in ways we would never expect.





Our first picture together, Christmas of 2011





I later moved to the apartment at Alvin’s house, and Raúl moved into the refuge home. Because I still had a key, I’d often come down and wash his dirty dishes or hand wash all of his laundry when he wasn’t home. Months before, because I was lonely and had so much time on my hands, I had started visiting his business, sometimes staying the whole day in the midst of tires and grease and burly men reading the newspaper. I was really lacking a direction in ministry even as I was fulfilling all of my duties as Alvin’s office assistant. So, I just decided to serve, and the person I saw who needed to be served was Raúl. His breakup had left him utterly devastated. I wasn’t interested in him romantically at all because he was always a clown. I just didn’t see him as someone serious about life or goals or anything. But, I could see that despite his silly demeanor, he was in a lot of pain. And, I didn’t see anyone constantly seeking him out to offer hope. I could tell that he really loved God, but his heart was broken, and his idea of his future had died when his relationship did. So, Raúl became my unofficial, first real mission field in Honduras. I was teaching myself to bake just as a personal project, so I’d bake something and take it down to the business to share. For months, Raúl took me to all kinds of family functions and included me in outings with friends sometimes. At that time, all of his brothers who can drive, drove the family around on motor bikes. Any time we went anywhere with his family, he was territorially adamant that I was to be his passenger. We were only friends, and we didn’t even talk about anything deep or serious.

I first started to notice that Raúl might have felt something for me oddly enough when I was robbed. I’d had the naive habit at the apartment of not double locking the door. So, one day, when various people had been milling around Alvin’s house, I entered to find various things were missing. Nothing too sentimentally important, but things that could be resold for some cash. I mentioned it to someone at the house, and well, word traveled fast. Within five minutes, Raúl roared up the hill on the motor bike and frantically barraged me with questions to know if I was okay. Apparently, someone had left out of the gossip that I hadn’t been present when the things were stolen.









Raúl's birthday, May 2012






This occasion was followed by the time one of his brothers had a motor bike accident. He’s the oldest and kind of the patriarch in some respects. He’s also Raúl’s business partner. So, Raúl was really worried when he received word that Nahum was being taken to the hospital. He came up to the house before he went to the hospital. He told us what was going on and picked up a jacket. Because I was also friends with Nahum, as Raúl was leaving, I asked if I could go with him. And he said, “That’s actually the only reason I came here. I didn’t want to go by myself, and I wanted to you to come with me.” Nahum ended up having a broken leg, but he recovered well.

A few months later, I was at the refuge home with a few of Raúl’s friends. He had randomly started talking about wanting to get married sooner than later, and we were all picking on him since he didn’t even have a girlfriend or a prospect. He finally got fed up with the picking, looked up at me, and said, “I’m going to marry you!” Well, my face got nice and red, so I just had to hide my face and move on. I was not expecting that. I also wasn’t really sure how I felt about him. Somewhere during that time, my dad had already made the comment over the phone to the effect of, “Raúl seems like a good guy; you might want to give him a chance.” But, I just wasn’t interested. Raúl was a good guy and always quick to help and serve me. But, he was all over the place and emotionally, distant and disconnected. He wasn’t really what I had in mind.

But, a couple months later, he took a few of us to see his spiritual mother, Sister Sonia. He had become a Christian largely through Nahum’s witness but also through his ex-girlfriend and her family. The person who really discipled him, however, in prayer and in the gifts of the Spirit, was Sister Sonia. Every time you visit her, she always has a word prepared. So, when we went in to see her, she took some time to read from the Bible. Then, she wanted to pray. Raúl, before having the rug ripped out from under him by his previous relationship, had been a constant prayer warrior. He would wake up every morning at 4 a.m. to participate in an intercessory prayer group with several other young people and Sister Sonia. And she would take that group to lay hands on sick people and pray or to pray in homes of needy people. I’d heard a lot of stories of how spiritual Raúl had been before he got his heart broken, but I’d never seen it for myself. But, Sister Sonia immediately brought him around to each of us to pray for us. I’d never seen someone pray with such authority. And, as he gave me a word, I remember thinking, “This is the kind of man I want to marry.” Over the course of that day, Sister Sonia told us both that God had something very special for both of us. At the end of our visit, she prayed for Raúl and prophesied about his call to be a missionary to the nations. As we walked out of her house, my mind was racing. What had just happened? It was like God gave me a very quick glimpse into who Raúl really was and who he was called to be. I couldn’t unsee it. And, from that one encounter, my feelings toward him changed.





A trip to Junquillo with Mami Nelly



All of this was around March 2012. You would’ve thought that it was simple—he seemed to like me. I liked him. But, he had been really hurt. He is the kind of guy who is extremely loyal, so when he starts a relationship with someone, he already knows he wants to marry that person. Letting go of the hurt and learning to trust any woman was proving very hard for him to do. And, rather than dive deeper into God’s heart to receive his healing, he was slowly distancing himself from God’s love. He still loved God and never stopped believing in Him. But, he had a lot of emotions to grapple with. The first example of what it meant to be a Christian had come from his previous girlfriend and her family, and they, too, were slipping away from God’s path. He was struggling to forgive, and he was adamant that he didn’t want to get involved with me before he was fully healed. But, he also didn’t really know where to start.

While I greatly appreciated his protection in not wanting to play with my heart, he had already extended a possibility to me, and my heart was already involved. For two years, it was a great battle with myself and often with God. I already loved him, and I believed that God was working on his heart, but sometimes, it seemed so hopeless. So, I just kept running to God. I’ve always wanted to love well, and I’m a very stubborn person—to the point that I won’t walk away from someone until God tells me that it’s time. Every time I ran to God wanting to write Raúl off because I was tired of waiting, He would give me a verse or send someone (often total strangers) to give me a word. It was often a week-by-week, month-by-month decision to still be a friend and to still love like Jesus even when receiving nothing in return. There were clear boundaries. We definitely weren’t friends with any benefits, and Raúl maintained his emotional distance to the point that I sometimes wondered if he felt we were friends at all. But, he would still come around for a visit, for some advice (or a lecture on my part), and was always willing to do a favor. But, we weren’t going anywhere in the relationship department. By that point, the outside input and comments from other people were just exhausting. Some days everyone was rooting for Raúl and expecting me to stick around, and some days, he was the enemy, and everyone thought I was foolish for still caring about him.






Christmas 2012






The breaking point for us wasn’t something I ever would’ve expected. In the midst of waiting on God to move in that situation, I wasn’t going to stay stagnant in other areas of my life. I was still pursuing what I felt like God was calling me to—single or not. And that was around the time that I was involved in 21 de Octubre and meeting my kids. When Josuan came into my life due to that broken leg, it was Raúl who often picked me up at the hospital after I’d visited him. Raúl also stepped up and let him stay in his room for months. Josuan loved living with Raúl and told me that he was the kindest any man had ever been to Josuan. So, he was close and supportive in the way that he could be even if he thought I was crazy. As my adventure with my kids started speeding up, I tried to involve Raúl as much as possible—to keep Raúl from thinking the worst and also because I wanted a male protection. I knew that if I didn’t involve Raúl in the boys’ lives from the beginning, it’d be way too difficult to introduce him later. So, while we weren’t together, my boys knew from day one that Raúl was an important part of my life and heart. As I’ve previously mentioned, I never wanted to be a single mom and certainly not to teenage boys. I knew fully what it looked like, and I wrestled with God over it. But, I didn’t see any other options. I didn’t have anywhere else for them to go. And, Raúl really just wasn’t in a place spiritually where he was ready to handle my adventure with street boys. That was initially frustrating. But, I don’t regret any of it because God made Himself very real to me during that time. It was exhausting, but as He often reminded me, He was my Husband. He was my Provider, Protector, Leader, Counselor, Comfort, everything. In addition to the sweetness of learning what it looks like when God is your Husband, I also feel like God was emptying me of most (well, some) of my independent streak. I think that time really led to my appreciating more having Raúl now.

When I started renting a house and Marvin was living there, Raúl became wildly protective and constantly present. That, honestly, shocked me. After two years of trying to involve him but getting rejected, feeling loved but ignored and admired but forgotten by Raúl, his sudden interest took me off-guard. Quite frankly, I was tired of the waiting. I knew I was waiting on God, but I wondered if Raúl was ever going to deal with anything. Out of nowhere, he started sending me text messages telling me he loved me and doing everything he could to spend time with me. I still wasn’t buying it. And, by that point, I was going through so many situations with my kids that I didn’t know how to process it all. Raúl was so insistent, that I was just getting angry especially since I hadn’t seen a change in his walk with God. I knew the call of God on my life, and I knew what it would take for someone to walk that call out with me. While Raúl had a missions call and a call to work with young people, he wasn’t living it out. So, I mostly ignored him. He was so afraid that he’d missed his chance, but he was in full pursue mode. One evening, I had taken my kids to a church we hadn’t been to before. Raúl called and wanted to know where I was and if he could show up wherever I was. I had tried to get him to come with me to churches before, and he never would. I didn’t expect this time to be any different. But, he did come. I don’t think the pastor had even finished his altar call before Raúl was on his knees up front just sobbing as hard as he could. I didn’t react much to that encounter he had with God. I wanted to make sure this was the real deal. But, soon, I started to see changes. Subtle differences in his priorities. And, slowly, I began to have peace that this was a real reconciliation with God. By the time my dad was set to come visit me, Raúl wanted to ask his permission to date me. It seems silly since I was already 25 at that point, but I’d never had a boyfriend and just needed some guidance. Dad turned out to be my saving grace.

As I said, I was exhausted. I had been dealing with various teenage boys amidst drug relapses and lying and didn’t have much of a support system. I was teetering on the edge of burn-out every day, and I was so in need of restoring love. When Dad came, we talked about Raúl, and he basically told me that I needed to wait a bit more. I was too exhausted to make a God-led decision rather than an emotional decision. And, I had some emotional issues I needed to deal with first. While Raúl wasn’t excited about the idea of waiting more, he determined to stick around however long he needed to.



During Naomi's trip to Honduras in the summer of 2013




Raúl, his nephew (Enmanuel), and I at his dad's birthday dinner in January of 2014



My birthday during my dad and brother's visit in May of 2014


During those two months more that we waited, I proactively sought God and told Him that I wanted to deal with any fears or emotional issues that were going to be baggage in any relationship. And, it wasn’t long before He visited me and uprooted some lies in my past that had been lingering. With that encounter, I finally felt like I could breathe. I was still stressed to the max with my kids, but I wasn’t in constant inner turmoil in the valley of decision. So, after more than two years of being in love with him, on July 13, 2014, Raúl asked me to be his girlfriend, and I said yes.

The verse God gave me about our relationship was from Isaiah 27:
“In that day, sing about a fruitful vineyard. I, the Lord, will watch over it, watering it carefully. Day and night I will watch so no one can harm it. . . . The time is coming when Jacob’s descendants will take root. Israel will bud and blossom and fill the whole earth with fruit!”






Christmas 2014






It was not smooth sailing by any means. Raúl was thrown into the complicated role almost of a stepparent, and my kids did not make life easy for him. I told him when he asked me to be his girlfriend that I really felt like I was not in a place where I would be a good girlfriend because I was still overwhelmed with the season I was in with my kids. But, he didn’t care (at first, of course). Throw in our cultural differences, long history, polar opposite personalities, and all the outside pressure, and there were several times where I really thought we’d just call it quits. But over the past two years, I could often feel God watching over our relationship and fighting for it when we both weren’t so sure. And, God sent us some lovely people who have walked with us and counseled us and corrected us when we needed it most.




February of 2015 in Santa Lucía



January of 2015






Pictures from Mom and Naomi's trip to visit in October of 2015









November of 2015





Raúl's birthday in May of 2016


After too many conversations to count about marriage and getting engaged, Raúl had Alvin work as translator to ask my Dad for permission to ask me to marry him. He’d already had the ring since last year but just hadn’t worked up the nerve to talk to Dad. That same day, November 18, two days before I was supposed to fly out for this trip to the States, Raúl asked me to marry him. He was actually planning on asking me the following day, but he had brought the ring just in case. He really isn’t a planner. He’s the king of spontaneity. So, in true impulsive fashion, after we’d done some grocery shopping, he invited me to a fancy restaurant where we’d had one of our first dates. We’re not typically fancy people, and we weren’t dressed for the occasion. But, we were having fun together. We were enjoying people watching—especially the couple in front of us, sitting with perfect posture, dressed up and made up, smiling at all the right moments, and too shy to dig into the food that was sitting on their plates before them. And, I thought about how I was so blessed to know that I was sitting beside someone who knew me well, someone with whom I could completely be myself, and how I wouldn’t trade that for anything in the world. I had ordered mashed potatoes, and I still have no idea if Raúl had our waiter slip the ring into the mashed potatoes, or if he put it in himself. At one point while we were eating, he said he wanted a bite of mashed potatoes. We normally share food, but this time, he was shoveling bites in at a surprising rate. When he finally gave the mashed potatoes back to me, there was really only one bite left, and my fork uncovered the ring. Raúl knew I didn’t want a big show in public. I’m not a fan of that kind of pressure. So, I held up the ring, he smiled, gave me a hug, and said, “Do you want to marry me?” And, I said yes. Nineteen years after the dream about my husband. Nine years and three months after our very first time meeting. Five years and two months after I’d moved to Honduras. Four years and eight months after Raúl had first exclaimed, “I’m going to marry you!” And two years and four months after we started dating. I’ll spare you most of the cliché morals of the story except to say that God loves the journey even more than He seems to love the destination. And, I’m thankful for how He’s taught me how to love and how He continues to teach me how to love well.

All of our love,
Raúl and Sarah

Be/loved

Have you ever watched a kid learning to walk? Pastor Edgar’s son, Daniel, is really capable of walking, and at one point, he got brave and started standing himself up to take those wobbly steps himself. But, at some point, when someone wasn’t watching, he took a tumble as all children learning to walk do, and since then, he’s been traumatized. He wants to be independent. He wants to kick his ball and toddle around, the drive to be free pushing him to shriek when he’s encumbered. But, he wants the assurance of an adult hand or an object of steadying. It’s the ultimate inner conflict, and every time he’s pushed to walk by himself and falls, it only reinforces the fear that walking means eating dirt.



I bring up Danielito because it’s the best visual I can give you for how this year has been for me. It’s true that this year has been all about transition and pruning. It’s true that little by little, God has been taking things off of my plate that had me constantly teetering on the edge of burn-out. But, I have felt like Daniel toddling after the elusive complete restoration I need. I have some major Type A personality tendencies. I’m very task-oriented, time sensitive, and organized. I live with a constant to-do list even if Honduran time has taught me to chill and be flexible about my expectations for deadlines and productivity. Thus, when I recognize a need within myself, I want to solve the problem and move on. Just as Josuan was when his leg was broken, I just want to will myself to heal NOW and be able to head off to the next mission. I’ve struggled for a long time with relating to God as a boss. I know in my head that He is a loving Father that wants to parent me, not employ me, but my driven personality often distorts my perception of who He is.



Just like a toddler, I’ve been pursuing freedom. Freedom from mistrust of the Church. Freedom from the weight of single motherhood. Freedom from all of the loss of the past three years. Freedom from the lingering of question of, “After I’ve fought for all of these, who is going to fight for me?” I’ve been pursuing restoration with all of my heart, and along the way, God placed people in my path from Dunamis who are serving as a light and a hope. I could choose to leave my story at that and not be raw about the reality of my life in missions, but it wouldn’t be truthful. Just like Daniel, I’ve taken vital steps forward and have felt the weightlessness of freedom even if only for a moment, but it’s not long before my face is in the dirt again, and I’m wondering if I’m ever going to get brave enough to even stand once more.



I look back on this year, and I know that I’m not the same person I was at the start of this year. I’m calmer and have gained some better stability. I’m no longer camping out on the edge of burn-out. I’m certainly wiser, and I’ve learned to make the difficult choices. I’ve learned boundaries and how to better battle in spiritual warfare. I know that I’ve been given powerful gifts I was lacking that are necessary for my calling. But, part of all of that learning and receiving has been passing through fire.


 
My 2015 calendar in a nutshell looked like this:
January- Utter exhaustion with Josuan’s drug relapses but choosing to seek God’s face. Attending a week-long worship service and a course on the prophetic, learning so much and being fortified with words from God.
February- The loss of Josuan to drugs and the streets and unending spiritual battles for his life. Being cared for by the pastors in Ojojona in the moment when I most needed it.
March- Recovering from the loss, ditching the anger, accepting peace while receiving God’s words at a women’s conference. Jonathan’s drug relapse. Marvin’s drug relapse.
April- The return of Josuan and the loss of Marvin.
May-June-July- Recovery, finding a new balance with no kids in my house, battling loneliness and loss of identity, visiting the States, breakthroughs in my Stateside family, joining Dunamis and receiving God’s love from my brothers and sisters in Christ, and celebrating one year being with Raúl.
August- The loss of Jonathan and battles with betrayal. Learning to be brave.
September- Erick’s murder. Discovering lies from Estefanny. Words declared over my life about returning to a childlike faith and innocence.
October- Mom and Naomi’s visit, return to street ministry, and debit card info stolen.
November- Josuan’s drug relapse and his leaving Ojojona. God’s words of comfort.
December- Just. Starting.



Yes, for the first time in nearly three years, I am without kids under my responsibility. I still have Jorgito in the orphanage who I still regularly visit. But, this Christmas is going to be so drastically different from last year. The loss of Josuan was not surprising to me especially after he had a relapse into drugs two weeks before he left. God had prepared me by giving me the revelation that even God Himself couldn’t convince Cain to not fall into sin. God the Father tried to warn Cain before he de-railed his own life, but even God couldn’t (didn’t) touch Cain’s free will. (Thus, how can I demand of myself the prevention every fall or the violation of someone’s free will for their own benefit?) But, even that preparation didn’t make the blow any lesser. Josuan made the conscious decision to leave Ojojona and is now living with his biological mother (where Estefanny lives) though he has already been back into drugs. With this time around, I still had to go through the stages of telling myself I didn’t care because I knew I did all I could, but really being angry because of the hurt of the betrayal and knowing what battles are coming for him, and then out of nowhere, relief.




I was at church on a Thursday night just a couple days after he left. I had been seeking God for answers regarding why he had even come back in April if he was just going to leave again, and I really sensed that this was just part of drinking the cup of suffering of Jesus. And, now, I confidently can say that Josuan was given all of the tools he needs to fight for himself, to have a personal relationship with Jesus, and to move in spiritual warfare on his own behalf. But, he has to be the one to choose to use all of the resources he’s been given in the past three years. So, in worship, I was just presenting myself to God again. Broken and without understanding, but willing to drink the cup of suffering for the sake of Jesus. And, God spoke to me in a way that He hadn’t for a while. He said, “Sarah, do you remember when your promise ring was stolen two years ago? You cried not because of the ring itself but because of the loss of the symbol, because it was a gift from your dad, and because you had wanted it to be your children’s inheritance.” Of course, I remembered. “But, you quickly decided that I would always know where that ring is. And you told me that you trusted Me to take care of it and that if it was My will, I could bring it back to you even in the most impossible of ways, even if you’re 80-years-old.” I could already see where He was going with this… “I need you to give Me Josuan like you gave Me that ring. You feel like the enemy has stolen your son from you, but the truth is that nothing that is freely given can be stolen. Just give him to Me. I will always know where he is, and I can take care of him better than you can. And, if it’s My will and Josuan uses his free will, I can always bring him back to you in My way and timing. Just give him to me.” It was quite the encounter for me, and the conversation continued from there, finishing with a pointed feeling that this was a moment of graduation, a closing of a chapter in my life so that a new one could begin. In one swift conversation, my journey as a single mother ended.




I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t anticipate this new season looking like the previous season at all. And, task-oriented person that I am, I’m once again obsessing over what I’m supposed to be doing now or who I’m supposed to be. The shift of identity from mami to whatever isn’t going to be a seamless one. But, in the midst of the renewed identity crisis, He is there. Just the other day, in the midst of angrily expressing to Raúl (God bless that man for his patience with me) my feeling of being lost and subtly trying to demand that he tell me who I’m supposed to be or how I’m supposed to move forward, God interrupted me, saying ever so loudly in my spirit, “Just be loved.” (Thankfully, God has given me a man who mercifully finishes a conversation where I’ve barraged him with frustrations and accusations by wiping my tears that God’s used to shut me up.) Prior to the conversation with Raúl, I had been asking God what my one word is for the upcoming year. What could be the one-word indicator for my impending next 12 months? What could be the slogan to maintain under my breath in the midst of trials? But, He was silent until that instant. Just be loved. Beloved.




I think after three years of developing a thick skin, of fighting for broken people with orphan spirits, and learning to love fiercely without receiving anything (but loss, betrayal, and disappointment) in return, I’ve forgotten how to receive God’s love. It’s easier for me to want to move into the next task or the next mission, making myself useful and giving more, than it is for me to be still and just receive. But, the reality is that this season I just finished was birthed out of receiving. It was birthed out of a time of slowness and fullness and preparation to pour myself out as an offering on the altar. I desperately want this upcoming year to be different, but the difference isn’t going to be measured in what I do or don’t do. It’s going to be measured by the degree to which I allow myself to be loved. All real ministry flows from love, and love is a two-way street of giving AND receiving.




In this season of reflection and quieting our hearts for the revelation of what the new year holds, I hope that you’ll put your first resolution as letting yourself be loved. All other goals and tasks can wait or are secondary. The reality is that you were made first and foremost to be loved by your Heavenly Father, not even to be used in ministry. Ministry is only a bi-product of being loved. Remember, He chose us first, and He renews that pact of unconditional love every day of every year. Just be loved, beloved.



All of my love,
Sarah

How Can You Keep Them Waiting?

Mom, myself, and Naomi

The crew from Ojojona
Back row: Yefri, Josuan, Edwin, Luis, Joseth, Cristian, Xiomara, Genesis
Front row: Pastor Edgar, Abiel, Pastor Daniela, Daniel, Juan José, Estiven, and Alex

The pastors with their two sons, Daniel and Abiel, with Naomi

Hello All,


It’s been a whirlwind couple of months that have gone by quickly. We’re nearing the end of this year before too long, and while I feel like it’s been a great (necessary) year, there’s still so much left to accomplish! This year, for me, has been a bit like an in-country sabbatical—or, at least a sabbatical from the high-pressure situations I was in for the last two years. It’s been a year of restoration and support. At the beginning of this year, when I—seemingly by chance—stumbled upon the conference in Ojojona, I was SO exhausted. I had never been so at the end of my rope. That conference was just a preview, a set-up for my entire year. I look back on who I was and my condition, and I don’t even recognize myself. The changes have been subtle but great. I can confidently say that I’m not constantly on the brink of burn-out and exhaustion, and I have found a place where I feel at home, honored, and blessed by my brothers and sisters in Christ. And, apart from that, I have a leadership that not only shares the exact same heart and vision but also has the spiritual tools to equip me better and a joyful willingness to support me and stand behind my ministry.


Previously, though I was quiet about it, I had spent years going from church to church, looking for someone who had the same heart, a church where I could take my street kid children. Some churches had the location but not the heart. Some had the strength in spiritual warfare necessary but not the leadership. Some had the vision but were full of religion. Some had the love of young people but no discipline. Some had the prophetic mantle but not the heart for the poor. No matter where I went, as had been the case since I was 18, I didn’t belong. The people were lovely. God used the periods of time I was in each of their churches, and when I left, I didn’t leave behind animosity but went in peace. But, with my kids, I was desperate for help and a support system. I was so frustrated by being so alone in the battle for my kids. I was so saddened that so many places wanted a piece of me or a piece of my kids but didn’t want our whole persons—they wanted me to serve in a position without wanting me to flow in my office in the five-fold ministry or to flow as the Holy Spirit led me. They valued my kids for their crazy testimonies and wanted them to evangelize in the name of their church but didn’t have the slightest clue about how to meet them in the middle of their continued battles with drugs and their pasts. I was carrying it all alone! But that time of frustration and fighting alone was so necessary. I carried a lot of church hurt even before I moved to Honduras. I had made every effort in my heart to forgive and carried no bitterness toward any person, but I carried SO MUCH distrust toward the church and their motives in general. Sometimes, this was completely relevant and was through discernment, but even when I found Dunamis Ministry in Ojojona, it was a hurdle to trust even people who had clean motives with me. What gave me motivation to jump that hurdle was remembering the alternative—doing it all on my own.


Now, I walk into church, and instead of being surrounded by open hands demanding a hand-out, I am surrounded by people who give me the clothes off their back when I compliment them on their shirts just because they want to bless and honor me (even when they know that I have the capacity to buy clothes). I have people who not only took on the weight of my kids to give me some relief, but they also took on the task of restoring me with love. I have people who not only give me permission to give prophetic words but push me to do so. I have people who lovingly kick my butt to get up and get back out there in ministry while simultaneously standing beside me and carrying my burdens. If I hadn’t found Dunamis, I don’t think I would’ve been able to continue being a missionary for much longer—that’s how emotionally, physically, and spiritually wrecked with exhaustion I was.


One of the signs that God gave me that He had led me to Dunamis and that I needed to let my guard down with them was through a suit jacket. For those of you who have been reading my blog for years, you may remember a suit jacket I was given by Pastor Donny Robbins of Life Church in Port Arthur, Texas, while I was on a road trip with my cousin in 2011. He gave me the (brand new) suit jacket off of his back with the instructions that I was to give it to a young man who would have the same anointing that he has. But, he was very clear that it had to fit exactly—not too big or too small—or it wasn’t for that person. For four years, I had a ridiculous number of guys try that jacket on, and it fit no one. Hondurans, in general, are shorter and smaller than people in the US. It was too big for everyone. But, one day, after visiting with Pastor Edgar of Ojojona, I caught a glimpse of that jacket still hanging in my closet, and I thought, “Bingo!” Sure enough, it fit perfectly. That church in Texas had been the first church I had felt completely at home in, was honored in, and was deeply ministered to probably since I was 12-years-old. And to have that jacket fit Pastor Edgar sent a clear signal to me.



A VISIT
My mom and sister came for about ten days towards the end of September, and it was great to have them here. My mom’s eager acceptance of Josuan as her grandson spoke volumes to people here about the unity that’s possible even with adopted kids. Having that support from my family has always been priceless to me. God is doing a special work in my family. It’s something I’ve prayed for, for many years as all of us have been damaged by church hurt, carry roots of distrust, etc. My brother had a transformative experience while at Iris Ministries’ Harvest School in Mozambique, and my mom has stated numerous times that she’ll never be the same following this trip to Honduras. I don’t know what God is up to, but I know it’s good. While they were here, Mom made a strong connection with Josuan and was able to spend time getting to know Raul. And, Naomi was able to complete her senior project in contributing to the ministry in Ojojona. While the church people were very excited to be receiving a much-needed gift, I think they were equally excited about what they had to give my family and wanting to make them feel at home and part of an extended family. Seeing that really blessed me.

While Mom and Naomi were here, we went to the streets to give out food and sweaters. This was the first time that we took a team from Ojojona, and it was like seeing my dreams become a reality. So many of the young people within the church have difficult pasts of drugs, street life, gang involvement, etc., and to see them released to minister to people from the same background was unspeakably beautiful. My dream has always been to have a team of restored street kids to go back and rescue more. That was exactly what was happening before my eyes. I hadn’t been to the streets almost in the whole year. The vision was always in place, but I just didn’t have the people to help and was too exhausted to do it alone. When we’d go in the past, I was always carrying the burden of the food, of the transportation, of the vision, of everything. I so longed to have an equipped team to be able to confidently delegate and carry out the mission with the same heart that God’s placed in me. I have worked with great people in the past with a lot of potential, but the vision that God has given me is different than anything we’ve done in the past. Now, however, Pastor Edgar and I sit and plan out our team—“Hey, God just gave me a list of people who should be on the team for your ministry to the streets.” *gives me the list* “Oh, we’re completely on the same page. Those are basically all the people I had in mind as well.” It is so refreshing to be on the same page and to have a pastor willingly, joyfully loan me his sheep for my ministry. No competition. No jealousy. Just partnership for building God’s Kingdom. So, we don’t have things completely off the ground though some of the people who went with me from the church were so inspired to continue (even though I haven’t had the resources) that they prayed in a donation of clothing, their small group is going to collaborate to donate the food, and they’re going to continue the work in their own area and invited me to honor me. What an amazing blessing.



SURPRISE!

While my mom was here, I went to pay for gas with my debit card, but it was refused. I thought perhaps it was due to a faulty machine. But, when I went to pay for groceries and was refused for insufficient funds, I called the bank. It turns out that someone stole my information and had been on a lengthy vacation on my dime to the tune of all of my checking account. I can laugh about it now, but it was quite stressful in the moment. Thankfully, everything has been reported, and currently, the bank gave me temporary credit, and the card company is investigating the case. I tell you all of this because in seeking God about this situation, I felt like God said that many times, He allows the enemy to steal from us to give us a chance to activate the promises in His Word that He has for us. This reply from God came after I had already proclaimed the example of Job over the situation—that when Satan steals from me, as a child of God, I am not only entitled to total restoration, but I’m also promised an increase. God makes no exception of persons. If He doubled Job’s blessings after he passed the test, He can do the same for me.



THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH
The Word says that nothing shall come to pass without God first telling His prophets. When Josuan had been in Teen Challenge only about a month, I had a dream in which someone was telling me a prophetic word that one of my kids would be murdered and another would go back to the streets but later return. It was a dream I prayed about a lot. Josuan returned to the streets, but it was a relapse that only lasted two and half months. I thought that the child that was murdered was Cristian, as I had been told that he’d been murdered in the boys’ juvenile delinquent center. That turned out to be false as he turned up in the boys’ juvenile delinquent center again this year. But, now that dream has sadly come to fruition. Since Erick left Teen Challenge, he was involved in some seriously dangerous activity, on the path that only leads to death in this country. I didn’t have a whole lot of concrete evidence of that though I could feel in the supernatural. I tried to warn his mother various times, but she denied it. In June, he ended up in the juvenile delinquent center for extortion and gang involvement. Though I had contact with his mom, out of wisdom for what I felt, I maintained my distance from him.


In September, she called me crying and saying that Erick had been released from the juvenile delinquent center (who knows if that’s true?) and was kidnapped. He was, in fact, kidnapped with another teenage boy in an unmarked vehicle. She had been searching for him for a week. A week later, she called me crying because two bodies of two young men were found in an abandoned house not far from where I live. They had evidence of having been tortured, shot, and burned. I went to the site to wait with her where Forensics, the police, family members, and news teams were all waiting the results. They did identify Erick and a friend by their clothes. The bodies had been in decay for nearly a week and were unrecognizable from the burns. We buried him the next day.

Erick

 It’s heartbreaking for his mother—who had already experienced the murders of her other son and of her husband years prior. But no one can touch free will. Salvation is personal. My consolation is that if he was tortured before they killed him, maybe he had time to repent and call on Jesus. He certainly had the seeds of the truth planted inside his mind and heart. I have no regrets with Erick. I poured into him while in Teen Challenge for two years. I helped him with his high school expenses. I fought for him in spiritual warfare. I had numerous conversations of warning with him. But, no one can touch free will, and the verse that states that the wages of sin are death is a complete reality here. He was knowingly playing with fire, and as a result, he basically signed his own death sentence. So, while it is a devastating loss, I continue because there are others who need the chance for rescue.



FREE WILL DECISIONS

One of the things I learned in the crash course I was thrown into in the last two years is that street kids are not rescued by simple food nor shelter nor working nor studying and not even by family. Street kids are rescued when they decide to pursue the life preserver we present them with of life with Jesus. All I can do is extend it to them. They have to be the ones to choose to paddle to it, grab it, and hold on for dear life. If I swim to them, put the life saver on their bodies and tow them to shore with no effort on their part, they never learn to swim on their own. They never develop their own will to truly live. They never learn to have a personal relationship of dependency on God…because they’re too busy depending on me and my love. It was a lesson learned the hard way.


Just yesterday, I had a small visit with Marvin who asked to come to my house. I don’t re-open doors with kids unless God puts grace in my heart towards the kid. It’s God’s signal to me that it’s safe and that they’re ready. On Saturday, before Marvin called, I felt that grace. So, when he called, I let him come. He had called Pastor Edgar a few weeks ago asking to live there in Ojojona. The pastor said no because I hadn’t spoken for him. Working with street kids is the embodiment of the verse that talks about being as gentle as a lamb but as cunning as a snake. I never understood that verse until I started working in Honduras. You have to be on your spiritual guard that in mercy you’re not inviting a demonic spirit to cause a loss of not only that young person but various others just through peer pressure to leave, fall into drugs, etc. Marvin isn’t quite ready, but the time to talk did allow me to present the conditions and the tests he has to pass of free will decisions before I’m willing to speak for him. One of which is that he has to repent and fix his relationship with Raul because he has never asked for forgiveness for stealing from him and disrespecting him. (Even that tiny test is a HUGE stretch for Marvin’s pride.) So, we’ll see what he decides.


Meanwhile, Jonathan has been living like a prisoner in danger as his old enemies are still looking to kill him. (They beat up Marvin and broke one of his teeth thinking it was his brother.) He’s another one who has to make some free will decisions about whether or not he wants to truly live or whether he wants to sign his own death sentence. The seed of truth is very present in his heart and mind. We’ll see what he decides even as we plead mercy and the blood over his life in the valley of decision.



REACTIVATED
For the past several months, I’ve had an internal battle. I’ve been busy with stuff—English classes, joining the church’s worship team, maintaining my household, participating in church ministry stuff, finalizing the legal process of my ministry, helping Raul with business plans, etc. But, I’ve been bored out of my mind, longing to get back to my ministry, to stopping for the one, to my street kids, to being the missionary I’m called to be. However, I’ve been in a tug-of-war with fear. Fear of what God is going to ask of me this time. Fear of reaching the same level of exhaustion as last time. Fear of falling into old patterns or that I didn’t learn the lessons well enough the first time. Fear of more rejection. Fear of the effects on my relationship with Raul. Fear of suffering. Fear of getting in over my head again. Fear of the criticism. Fear of loss. ETC. It’s like this—there is this one episode of the TV show Scrubs where JD, a doctor and the main character, realizes that he’s afraid of sick people and tries to avoid all of his contagious patients. It seems silly, but that is exactly how I’ve felt. I know I have a lifeline for others. It’s been prophesied over me so many times that there are captives just waiting for me to light up their darkness. But, I’ve been paralyzed in the process of restoration. I finally just told God the other day, “I am so sick of myself and of wasting time, but I can’t will myself to heal from this. So, help me out here, please?”


This past weekend, I went to an evangelism conference with Will Hart and Jamie Galloway, two of the guys from Darren Wilson’s movie, Holy Ghost. (Here is a link to Will Hart's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WillHartMinistries)  I can whole-heartedly say that Will Hart is one of the best speakers I’ve ever heard. (Jamie Galloway is also pretty great!) I have never encountered someone who not only really gets what the Christian life is about but also articulates it so well and with such a contagious passion. I was teary just listening to his wild testimonies of serving with Iris Ministries and Heidi Baker and being sent to the Congo in the middle of the peak of its danger with rebel groups. I had told God that I wanted to leave that conference with a breakthrough, with a difference. And, for the first time in such a long time, I felt that original childlike passion for the lost. I felt that innocent fire of desire to have an adventure with God—exactly how I felt before I took on Josuan. I was just so fearless, so ready to storm forward no matter the cost. I have wanted to return to that place (but with the increased wisdom from the tests of the last two years). I can’t say that I’m at 100% yet, but I am well on the way.



During worship/ministry time, God gave me a convicting word. All day Saturday, I was worried about time—getting there on time, returning from lunch on time—and dealing with Hondurans who feel good about themselves as long as they’re no more than an hour late. I’ve lived here for four years, but I still think Honduran time of no one getting there when they say they’re going to is for the birds. I hate making people wait or not fulfilling my word to be at a certain place at a certain time. It makes me feel like a liar. (My love language is quality time…Time is like a currency for me because you can’t buy any more, and I hate disrespecting others’ time or when someone disrespects my time. It’s like stealing something you can never get back…but I digress.) So, in ministry, God gave me a mental image of thousands of street kids. They were all singing Rich Mullin’s song, “My Deliverer,” which was a song that God gave me in 2007, the first time I went to Honduras. There is this haunting part of the song where children are singing, “My deliverer is coming. My deliverer is standing by.” It makes me cry even now just thinking about it. God took me on this tour to see all of these singing children and teenagers high on glue. Then, holding my hand, He looked at me and said, “How can you keep them waiting?” It broke my heart in the best way possible.


So, good things are happening. They’re stirring in the spiritual atmosphere. They’re already in the heart and mind of Christ, but they’re going to begin to be birthed in the natural. It’s exciting. For the first time in such a long time, I am excited about the possibility of another adventure with God. I look at Josuan who has cost me so much but has been so worth it, and I know that even if I have to drink the cup of suffering He hands to me, even if I have experience loss and betrayal, even if I get criticized, even if I’m in well over my head, it is worth it. It will all be worth it.


I’ll leave you today with some good tidbits they taught us in the evangelism conference:

God will utilize whatever you have to give—even if that is very little. You don’t have to be enough because Jesus is always enough. – Jamie Galloway

The disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray in Luke 11 after Jesus had already sent them out in Luke 10. He sent them out without that basic preparation of knowing how to pray because Jesus puts us in situations we aren’t prepared for because it’s out of faith and not out of knowledge or skill. Jesus is very comfortable with us feeling uncomfortable. – Jamie Galloway

Our mission is to bring heaven to earth and not to determine God’s motives in healing or not. That’s not our job. We’re just vessels. It’s always the will of God to heal, save, and bless. – Jamie Galloway

Everyone is called to move in all of the gifts. You may move in one at a higher level than another, but they’re all gifts of the spirit, so everyone has access to all of the gifts instead of pigeonholing oneself in only one or a couple. Any lost person that God presents in front of you with a need, you do not have the right to say, “No, sorry. You have to come to my church for that because I don’t move in that gift. Someone else does,” because that person is going to hell, and you’re the chosen one to meet that need. – Will Hart

Don’t put Satan and God on the same level fighting. It’s more like Satan and Michael are fighting. God doesn’t play on the same playing field as Satan. – Will Hart

Don’t use Satan as an excuse not to go. When you feel oppression, it’s not time to back up. It’s because you’re calling to bring light to that darkness. Stop using Satan to justify your fear. Your faith is not to protect yourself. – Will Hart

Satan cannot quench the Holy Spirit’s fire. Only you can. – Will Hart

The only way to learn to move in the gifts is to move with what you already have. You’re going to fail. You’re going to miss it. That doesn’t make you a false prophet. – Will Hart

The only way to know if it’s you imagining or if it’s God is to test it. Move on it. That’s how you find out. – Will Hart

Jesus’ greatest investment was in people. – Jamie Galloway

Don’t wait for an emergency to ask for a miracle. – Jamie Galloway

All of my love,
Sarah

PS There are a lot more pictures to show of Mom and Naomi's trip, so I'll try to do a post just of pictures soon.

New Season

Hello Again

Though unintentional, I’ve been on a blogging hiatus for a few months. Since getting back from the States, things have been busy, and I’ve been trying to process it all. I’m coming up on my fourth anniversary as a missionary to Honduras, and I’m happy to see how God is stretching me and making changes in my life. It’s easy to feel like one is in the middle of a tornado when transition periods strike, but I would always prefer the uncomfortable whirlwinds to the stale, murkiness of stagnant waters.

Right now, there is no normalcy or routine, which is both good and frustrating for my schedules, to-do lists, and plans personality. I’ve been in the midst of still teaching English classes, getting further involved in ministry in Ojojona, examining the vision for Family of Promise Ministry, meeting lots of new people through the pastors in Ojojona, still meeting my obligations for my remaining kids, caring for my relationship with Raul, and dealing with the ins and outs of transportation issues, working to help Raul better manage his business, life in general, etc.


Words of Life
While in the States, I had a wonderful time of visiting with my family and seeing friends. I also utilize time in the States to read. Reading is one of the best ways I have to replenish my spiritual forces, challenge myself, and continue learning. The best way I know how to explain what God is doing in my heart and life right now is by sharing what I’ve been learning through reading and through the encounters God is giving me with people of honor. Just to give you a glimpse of what God has been using to speak to me, here is the list of what I’ve read or been reading:

Scary Close by Donald Miller – This book opened my eyes to see how untrue I am to myself and who God created me to be whenever I let fear of rejection dictate how I act (or hide) in relationships. I’d grown accustomed to giving the people what they want (time or resources) or hiding instead of giving them what they need at times—though may not want—(correction, exhortation, teaching, discipline, a solid “no,” etc.). The only area in ministry where I was able to maintain a backbone balance of love and discipline was with my children—they’ve been great sources of growth and developing bravery and character in my life. Being in ministry (especially after already dealing with lots of ministry situations that have been painful) is scary. Giving all of yourself (not just time and resources but personality, advice, opinions, and spiritual gifts) to others is a very vulnerable place to enter. As an introvert, it’s incredibly difficult. There is definitely a need for discernment in ministry, and I don’t regret having used discernment in what I choose to invest myself in whole-heartedly. However, that same guardedness can be detrimental and rob us of destiny if we are finally led by God to the prepared arena and still don’t want to jump in for fear of rejection or due to old wounds that tell us we’re always destined to be rejected. We fear pain so often, when God is the Author and Finisher of restoration. I can’t count how many times God has stitched my heart back up with threads of forgiveness, truth, and unconditional love even in the midst of humans who have failed me. When we really understand who we are in Him, we are free to be ourselves fully and unapologetically, even if the way we challenge others could cause defense or rejection. We’ll never really know the depths of our relationships until we take our shoes off, let our hair down, and present the profound flaws and gifts we have before one another.

The Ultimate Treasure Hunt by Kevin Dedmon – This is a book I have yet to put into practice but plan to. I’ve never been the type of person who is prone to sit down next to a total stranger and start evangelizing. That is often because I hate small talk, I feel like the majority of people I encounter (even here) have already heard the Gospel spiel, and I am more prone to want to offer more meaning to their personal situation. In general, this usually requires prolonged attention and listening and relationship rather than an instant-gratification speech or repeat-after-me prayer. I can’t get past the question of “What good does it do for them to “pray the prayer” if they have no one to disciple them or teach them who they are in Christ?” (Jesus did say to make disciples, not just to meet a quota of people who’ve repeated the Sinner’s Prayer.) But, they both obviously have their place. To me, the technique of “treasure hunting,” or using Holy Spirit-given words of knowledge to total strangers to initiate prayer for healing, salvation, or whatever else—basically giving someone a supernatural encounter with the love of Jesus—, is the best marriage of the two. And, the best part is how it deepens our relationship and intimacy with the Holy Spirit. My difficulty in putting this into practice has been when I mentioned previously—fear of failure or rejection, feeling like I have nothing to offer, etc., but I’m getting there.

The Biblical Guidebook to Deliverance by Randy Clark – This book is short but incredibly eye-opening. I recently read an article in which missionaries expressed what they wish they would’ve known before coming to the field. One echoed response was the need to be schooled in spiritual warfare. I second this whole-heartedly. I have learned extreme lessons in spiritual warfare from being in Honduras—whether it’s been in seeing demons manifest and people delivered, physically seeing angels, realizing the reality of generational curses, seeing the effects of witch doctors, or seeing the demonic influence my children’s attitudes. It’s the reality that the majority of the US church does not see or does not acknowledge or emphasize. I have no idea where I would’ve gone in my little town (apart from reading books and listening to messages from other places and other people) to learn the lessons of spiritual warfare that I’ve needed to learn here. Thus, I applaud this book by Randy Clark because it gives a glimpse into the world that lives beyond our senses and how to combat the roots of what causes much destruction that we simply explain away. “My people are destroyed by lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6) is the absolute truth, and if we were to lift up a generation of people skilled in spiritual warfare, we would see drastic changes in our worldwide spiritual climate.

The World’s Greatest Revivals by Fred and Sharon Wright – I don’t really know fully what God’s doing in me or what He’s preparing me for, but He has drastically been expanding my vision and globalizing my mindset. Reading this book was an awesome way to get a bigger picture of who God is and how He moves. It makes me want to be a part of a movement so much bigger than myself, to be a small building block in the construction of His Kingdom on earth. This book also really emphasizes that the current wave of revival still sweeping the earth deals with the paternity of God and how to recapture the understanding of what it means to be sons and daughters of God. This is exactly what God is restoring in my heart in terms of ministry right now. He’s teaching me how to be free in ministry because of His unconditional love and delightful covering of grace.

The Happy Intercessor by Beni Johnson – For a long time, I never really considered myself an intercessor because I’m not the kind of person to get up, get on my knees, and yell petitions for hours at a time. (That is completely my Raúl though.) I used to run, and while listening to worship music, God would often talk to me and place people on my heart to pray for, but my form has never “fit the mold” of what Christian society says is intercession. With that said, I am, by nature, incredibly empathetic. I have the gift of receiving the emotions of others as if I were a sponge, and it doesn’t matter if it’s standing in line at the bank, reading a comment on Facebook, or sitting in a worship service, I can’t stop intuitively “reading” the crowd. To be honest, I haven’t often seen it as a gift because I haven’t known how to use it. Often, it’s just been a source of exhaustion, and a reason for me to hide at home rather than going out into people-crowded areas that can fill me with anxiety and burdens with no warning. But, this book was so helpful in pointing out how to use that gift and that while my form may not fit the expectations of others in religious circles that I am very much an intercessor though it often comes in periods of intense worship, through prophetic painting, dance, travail, and just loving unconditionally those that no one wants to deal with. If intercession is essentially stepping in between God and others as a vessel of mercy, then that is exactly what I’ve done and continue to do with my kids and others in my life.

Encountering God through Dance by Saara Taina – For probably all of this year, God has been speaking to me through dance. This is very weird for me because while I’ve loved to dance (bob up and down more than anything else, ha ha) in praise, and it’s incredibly common and accepted here, I’ve never considered myself graceful. I never had formal dance lessons as a kid unlike many of my friends, and while I did participate in church dramas as a kid and learn some sign language, I just never saw myself as a dancer. But, God is shifting my paradigm of who I am in ministry, and it’s been prophesied over me various times in the past couple months (and had been prophesied over me in the past also) that the area in which God is going to use me for delivering and ministering to others is largely in worship. So, this book was great for expanding my thinking of the purposes and prophetic impact of dance as well as the Biblical basis for using dance in worship.

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers – This book is amazing. My friend, Beth, insisted that I read it (even buying me a copy), and it was well worth it. It had been a long time since I’d read a book of fiction. The whole premise of the book is a reinterpretation of the story of Hosea and Gomer. Though it’s difficult for me to put into words, God greatly used this book to expose me to a new depth of His love and to continue molding the orphan spirit out of my heart and thinking. It does a great job of putting into words how we can be such paradoxes of desperately needing love but so quickly rejecting real love out of fear. It gave me hope for healing for myself and others.

School of the Prophets by Kris Vallotton – I’m currently reading this book, and it’s been a great pairing with what I’ve been learning even just from the beginning of this year starting with the course I took on the prophetic in Tsebaoth Ministry. I’m learning more from Pastor Edgar in Ojojona, and I’m exciting to see what God is able to do in and through my ministry as a result of increased understanding.

Digging the Wells of Revival by Lou Engle – I will likely finish this book today, and I’ve never read anything like it. I had never heard of Lou Engle until I had the opportunity to hear him speak in a conference last year. His stories are crazy, and his life and ministry really are a testimony to the new level God is calling us to. This book, like The World’s Greatest Revivals, is greatly widening my vision and my understanding of what God wants to do. The way that Lou Engle not only values spiritual history but capitalizes on it for the expansion of God’s strategies is inspiring and mentality-changing. So often, we see the new generation want to reject the revivals and movements of the older generations. And, the older generations often want to build an altar or monument to the old movements and camp out there without ever believing that God has new movement planned. The scorn between generations is such a tactic of the enemy to limit our fruitfulness, but if we would learn to both honor the generations before us and their movements while challenging them to go deeper, be more radical, and move forward with God’s renewed creativity, we’d see new harvests unimagined. In the Kingdom, there is a law of multiplication in place. In ministry, Jesus said we’d do greater things than He did. For me, that means that I don’t ever want to be in competition with my spiritual children. Hands-down, I absolutely want them to do greater things than me. I want my ceiling to be their floor, their launch pad, into the next great movement of God.


Update on Our Story

For those of you who have kept up with the characters in my little life story, here is an update on how everyone is doing. It’s been an adventure, and while I know that God is ushering me into a new and different season in ministry, I also know that His promises and redemption stand true for the ages even if I haven’t seen them manifest yet.

Josuan has been in Ojojona living with the pastors in their House of Faith for four months now. It hasn’t been easy for him, but I am grateful to see with spiritual eyes how God is preparing him for his future. I had become a crutch for my son, so the distance between us (though I still see him often) is creating a greater dependency on God for him and is teaching me how to improve this area for future spiritual children.

Marvin has been living with his family since April. He works and says he goes to church, but he’s also lapsed into various old lifestyle habits. That is sad, but it’s also not surprising. He’s needed to suffer to recognize his need to make some stern choices. Is he ready to serve Jesus whole-heartedly and without putting his own conditions or not? Does he recognize that he can’t do it on his own or not? He says he wants to go to Ojojona, but I am not convinced that he has fully decided. So, we’ll see what happens.

Jonathan is still in Teen Challenge, and we’re in the midst of clearing up some legal situations he has pending in order to be able to send him to Ojojona with Josuan and the pastors.

I don’t have a lot of communication with Estefanny. That has mainly been because she has stayed at the church where I had been attending mainly for the kids. While God shifted me to Ojojona, where there is a shared vision and a church equipped and focused on dealing with street kids, she stayed in the other church to continue to be a part of the dance ministry. I worry about her at times because of attitudes I see in her and actions that really require discipline, but I’m not in a place of authority over her, and she hasn’t shown much interest in continuing to keep close to me or even to her brother. But, she is young, and I know that she does have a personal relationship with God. He’s holding her in His hands.

Erick (and Cristian, who I had been told was murdered) is in the boys’ juvenile delinquent center. I don’t know how long their sentences are, but Erick’s sentence is expected to be a minimum of two years, maximum of nine (consequences of disobedience and rebellion even before he left Teen Challenge to live with his mom).

Elvis went to live with his family, and I haven’t heard from him since. Jorge, however, continues in the orphanage and is doing well. He has a personal relationship with God and is disciple by the pastor of the orphanage.

Joel and Bladimir live on the streets, constantly doing drugs. And, we’ve never heard anything else from or about Jesús since he left.

God had said that I would only be left with a remnant from this season, and that is exactly how it has evolved. But, even though the short-term outcome is heartbreaking in many cases, I am so grateful for this season because I’ve learned so much. I recognize that this time has really been a preparation for greater long-term fruit. And, who am I to despise small beginnings (Zechariah 4:10)? One thing is for certain—I never again want to let ministry take the place of personal intimacy with God. It’s an ongoing temptation without a doubt. But, fruit flows from that intimacy. Rest and resources and strength all come from His presence. It’s all about ministering to His person before any others.

Perhaps my greatest fruit from this season has been Raúl. I stumbled into fighting for Raúl. He was in the middle of a season of discouragement and avoiding healing from deeply inflicted wounds. He never stopped loving God, but he completely lost sight of how much God loves him. I was just looking for something to do in terms of taking care of him, cooking for him, or whatever. But that soon evolved into a personal mission to fight for him—his calling, his ministry, and for him to see his own value to Jesus—because I didn’t see anyone else fighting for him, reaching out to him with love or hope, or calling him back to the arms of the Father. It was a long-suffering labor of love in the midst of indifference to win the battle against pain, but the reward has been priceless. Words cannot express God’s faithfulness or how I’m overwhelmed with a sense of victory when I see Raúl worshiping God in total abandon. I longed for so long to see his heart healed, his spirit free, and his burdens lifted. When I started fighting for him just as I have fought for my kids, I never expected that mission to have such a personal result. I didn’t expect that in seeing him restored and reconciled with God that I’d also be encountering the man who has the call complementary to my own. I didn’t expect that making the choice to love him unconditionally even in the midst of the pain that it caused me would eventually lead me to falling in love with him. Though I was obedient to God’s leading, many times, I couldn’t see the framework that God was laying for our relationship. Now, of course, I’m unspeakably grateful that I obeyed even when I didn’t want to, and my faithfulness in the midst of his indifference was God’s reward to Raúl, because after being with someone who betrayed him terribly through cheating and mistreatment, he’s never been so secure in the fidelity of a godly woman. And, his gratefulness shows in his treatment of me. We’ve been together for over a year now, and while we’re always going to be in the process of maturity, I am so blessed to see numerous breakthroughs that God has given us over the past year. I am thrilled to know that in the midst of so many trials (mainly with ministry and my kids) that “normal” couples don’t face, we’ve weathered the storms together with Jesus as our guide. It’s a promising start to whatever more God has in mind for the future.


A Visit
My story is expanding with new characters as I become more involved with the ministry in Ojojona. And, it’s a wonderful feeling to be developing a new support system. Next month, my mom and my sister will be coming down to do a project of expanding housing for future street kids where Pastor Edgar lives. I am excited for them to meet my new friends (and old ones that they haven’t met), and my mom is thrilled to finally get to meet her remaining grandchildren.


Blessed
To end this update, I just want to express my gratitude towards God. The past couple of months, I have been astounded by His provision and His faithfulness. After giving away my little car at God’s leading, and still being in the process of saving to buy another vehicle, within days, God provided me with transportation when Raúl unexpectedly bought a car in a deal with someone who owed him money just so that I’d have something to drive around because he didn’t want me riding on the bus. (I think he loves me…and I think he’s a keeper.) And, I’ve been amazed by the provision that has poured in from unexpected places even as I have been extending finances to others in need at God’s leading. I am blessed by God’s abundance as He cares for me, His daughter. And, I pray that He extends overflowing blessing to all of those people who have honored me with their prayers, their finances, their e-mails, their communication, etc. Honor is essentially believing in someone else, and I feel so privileged by the way that you all have believed in me—or rather Christ in me. He is so worthy. From season to season, from glory to glory, He never stops being worthy of it all.

All my love,
Sarah


PS Here are some pictures from this year. I am awful at taking pictures, but these are some of what I have on file.



Graduating from Tsebaoth's prophetic course in January

Raúl and I at graduation

 

The congregation in Ojojona that used to meet under a makeshift structure of wood and plastic

The construction team in Ojojona when they started building the new structure for the church

The new church structure in progress. Though not pictured, it now has half of the roof. It still lacks the rest of the roof, the walls, and the floor.

Pastor Edgar, Pastor Daniela, and their son, Daniel. They have a newborn son also, Edgar.



Raúl's birthday in May



Camping with my family in June



Xiomara, one of the young people who lives with the pastors



Christian, a boy who lives with the pastors

Joseth, lives with the pastors



Alex, lives with the pastors



Luis, lives with the pastors

Eduard, also lives with the pastors



The cabin my mom and sister will be helping to build onto for more housing for street kids