To Sum It Up

Ok, ok so I know we've been slacking and there hasn't been an update for several days. I apologize for that. We've been crazy busy and as you well know as time goes on you get exhausted and by the time that you are in your room at night you fall into the bed. I have had an awesome time. I'm convinced I had the coolest room in the place. I got to meet some sweet sisters who define the word fun. We laughed so hard. Great big hearts and some good friendships formed in ten days in this place. Thanks, Julie, Niki, Phyllis, Esperanza and Karen for what you added to my journey this time. You're good stuff!!

Now as for the past few days here's a brief summary that once again won't do justice. I'll do my best and trust God to convey the rest. I'm gonna have to start with today and work my way backwards. As many memories as I have in this place, as unique as they all are, and as wonderful as they all rate, I think perhaps today was my favorite day in Honduras. I am over and over again surprised that the best things in life are often the hardest. We went today to Jimmy Hughes orphanage. The children that he takes in here are a special breed. They have had to have been victims of watching their parents assasinated or various other horrendous violent crimes. Each child comes with a story and he shared so many of those with us today. We played with the children, toured this amazing facility, and then walked maybe a quarter mile up the road to his rehabilitation center where he rehabs drug addicts, murderers, and the like. I have heard a lot of preaching in my 28 years of life, but I have NEVER heard someone preach like this man's life or his life giving words. Jimmy's story has a plot similar to a modern day Paul. He was born to a missionary mother and he grew up in Brazil. His parents divorced when he was very young and so he grew up without a daddy. Around 14 or 15 he began to get very rebellious and was into drugs and alcohol. When he was 16 his mother signed him up for the armed forces because he was out of control. While he was enlisted he took every special training course available to him. He had sniper training, ranger training, special forces training, wartime training, etc. He became a ranger for the special forces in the United States Army. After getting out of the army he was a hitman for the maffia. Several times today when sharing his testimony he expressed the fact that he had killed enough people and seen enough blood to fill a swimming pool. One night he had a contract for a hit to the tune of $30,000 and between him and his target stood six men. In the matter of a minute he had shot them all in the head and left them dead and as he lifted his pistol to shoot his target he looked into the eyes of the man and he saw his own face. He said in that instant he felt the hand of the Lord and heard His voice say..."Jimmy know ye this day that I love you and I CAN forgive you." He said he put his gun down walked away turned stateside evidence and never looked back. He was done with that life forever. His story is heart wrenching, but what God has done through his life for these children is absolutely amazing. I sat in a puddle of tears the entire time he talked. I will share more with you later but I want to just share this one story. This will be very straightforward and perhaps crude in some ways, but it's the way he shared it and I know no other way to tell it than to just speak the truth here and so I beg your forgiveness if there was a more tactful way to present this. There was a young girl there today and he asked her to stand as he told her story. Her name was Roxana, beautiful girl about 16 years old. She had come to his facility about a year ago. Her mother is a prositute and because of that she was next to forced into gang life and horrendous things that are unimaginable. This precious young lady stood while he explained that during her gang life she had been forced to place 38 revolvers into her vagina and smuggle all sorts of weapons that way into the prisons. It has torn her insides to pieces and when she came to him she was nothing short of a complete mess. To look at her face you'd never know the pain her heart has known. Two of her friends who were in this gang with her were decapitated and cut wide open in front of her and just in time she escaped. A few days later she ran into the first lady of Honduras and begged her to help. She was then taken to this facility where she is protected because there are people right now who are looking to find her to kill her. She will spend the rest of her life there so that she can be protected. I sat there and I listened to this story with tears pouring down my cheeks and several other stories just like it and this sweet sweet girl who has been brutally abused and mistreated was sitting just above me on the steps. I saw her looking at me out of the corner of my eye and in one of the most holy instants of my life she slid her hand into my hand and held it for the rest of the time that Jimmy talked. She saw my tears and she wanted to comfort me. My tears were for her and her pain and she was able by the grace of God to be Jesus' hands in my life today and I thought isn't that just like God. To use someone else's hurts to comfort and heal your own. I felt my sandals fall off and in my heart my face hit the ground before a God who turns horrendous into extraordinary. Lots more stories from there that I pray you all get to hear at another time. It rocked my world and there wasn't a dry eye in the place while we listened to him talk. It just touched you to tears to hear and see all God was doing in this place.

That was basically today's big moment in my world.

Yesterday, we went to Hospital Escuela and to Casitas Kennedy. So needless to say it's been a losing your heart couple of days. Once again, I loved on kids all over the place. We stood beside the bed of so many sick children and their mothers and prayed and loved. One that stands out for all of us was a little baby with hydrocephalis and a brain tumor that had his little head in an incubator box and looked so incredibly sick. He was only days old and his name was Carlos. He could use all the prayers you have to offer. We stood there and prayed for him as he struggled for every breath and it was all you could do to hold it together long enough to attempt to console in any way. We also sang beside the bedside and the song that was chosen was Seek Ye First. I was so humbled by this experience because somewhere in my spirit I thought we don't really have a clue, most of us, how deep this seeking Him first goes or what it requires. How do you practically walk out the seeking when you are sitting beside the bed of your dying child? It took on new depth for me today and it caused questions to surface that wouldn't have otherwise and it's still created some ponderings that won't be settled for a while, maybe ever. Like God, does seeking You first ever come without brokenness and pain? What is it that you would love to see in moments like that...what are you looking for? That's one of the reasons I love this place so much. It causes me to look deeper than surface level and get real about the things that matter. That's a blessing that many times home doesn't afford because I'm so wrapped up in the pretense and distraction. We all are and I apologize if that rubs you the wrong way but it's the truth. We're distracted and we lose focus and it's noisy and we pretend for each other all the time, all the while keeping us from falling together before God. We can't afford that and I am so thankful for the way this country and the absence of pretense calls me back to center.

At Casitas Kennedy yesterday, I went to love on babies, and it was a delight, but it was the teenage girls who once again absolutely stole my heart. We sat and read the bible together, I underlined some of my favorite verses in their bibles, we laughed and ate candy and hugged each other and cried together over a couple girls who had only been there for a few days because their mother had just died or their older sister had just brought them and dropped them off because they couldn't afford to feed them anymore. Over and over throughout the day this one gal kept saying to me, will you sponsor me in English. When I asked her what that meant in Spanish she said, tu mi madre. Which means you be my mother. Awwwwwwwwwwww if I could have walked out of there at that moment with her to give her a new life I would have in a second. I saw Jesus in the fact that today when I looked into eyes begging me to take her home I had to say no but in a few months I will be able to look into eyes and say yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, you may now come home. Oh joy beyond joys!! More about moments there too at some time later I'm sure.

Then Wednesday, I worked again out at Santa Ana. If you haven't noticed, I've just fallen in love with that property. I've had an opportunity this week to meet some other precious people who will also be working out on the property with Mi Esperanza and the church and the various other projects. It will be a delight to work with them also I can already tell. We had 3 of the walls about halfway up by the end of the day and moved like 2,000 concrete blocks and had fun doing it. The ground for the childrens home was leveled today and the well has begun to be dug. Things are moving right along and it's gonna be such a special place. Worshipped tonight at the Jesus statue and as is always the case it was a treat. So humbling to sing praise and worship music sitting below Jesus outstretched arms overlooking a city that your heart has grown to love beyond words. Though the darkness is deceiving as to all that is visible come the light of day in that same city I wonder if in the darkness we see more clearly the potential to be the light of Jesus to so many dark places. It's always touching.

Mark had one of his most awesome experiences too today. I don't want to ruin it for him and so I will allow him to share the details with you, but I'll just say this. He did some dunking for Jesus this day and it was a new experience that brought a sweet joy to his face and tears to his eyes as he so hoped his dad is having an opportunity to see him now.

We've all been changed and grown and been challenged and gone deeper and laughed and cried and everything in between. Some moments have been horrendously hard and others have been terrificly light and uplifting. One thing remains the same every time I come here. I can count on coming face to face with Jesus. Through dirty little brown eyed faces and this time in dirty little brown feet, through momma's and children and grandmothers and all the rest, in the pleading eyes of the hungry, in the sorrowful eyes of the sick, in the faithful eyes of the dependent upon God's provision, in the hearts of those you serve and those you serve with...you can count on seeing the face of Christ.

Once again He has shown Himself immeasurably faithful and He has shown up to walk this journey with us, beside us, better than that IN us. I didn't take one step of this journey apart from Him because He chose to live inside this filthy rags sinner that He made righteous. Is that amazing incredible HUGE overwhelming love or what??

We're on our way home tomorrow morning and we'll see you all soon after that. Thank you for your prayers, your support, your love, and all the rest. We love you!!