Risk and Acceptance

I am beginning the book, The Hole in Our Gospel, and I feel jerked up short.  I worry about some things I am seeing here, and wonder what can I do and how?  The need is so great and resources so short.  Then I witnessed a great occasion for real  and genuine Christian love.
Mirabel is the young woman who is Lucy's mother, Suzy's youngest adopted daughter, now with 19 month old Fernando and another on the way.  A recent ultrasound showed it is a girl.  She has had a tragic life on the streets and has experienced horrors that no one can truly imagine, nor should ever have to.  Mirabel was abandoned as a tiny child and she has had to make her own way in the underworld of Tegucigalpa.  Recently Suzy and Amanda took her in to live at Casa LAMB for awhile, until something better could be found for her.  She accepted Jesus in her life in very moving circumstances.  For awhile she tried to adapt to a drastically different way of life.  But yesterday she snapped.  She became out of control with emotions we can only guess at, and made the decision to go back out on her own.  The worrying part of it is that she has Fernando, very severely underweight at 10% of the norm, and only 22 pounds, and the new baby on the way.  It is possible she has pregnancy related diabetes, so her health and the health of her unborn child is at risk.  Amanda spent a whole day Monday taking her and Fernando to doctors and getting medicine for both of them.  The cost to LAMB was a full month's wages for minimum wage earners here-about $350.  Even that is much more than Mirabel has access to-there are no social services for those in poverty here.  The regimen the pediatrician prescribed for Fernando is stringent and complicated, and expensive.  How will she manage on her own?  What is Fernando's fate?
What complicates things even more is her depressed state.  I think it must be very hard to suddenly be the recipient of so much generosity-even in Christian love-without fearing what strings may be attached?  I think it may feel embarrassing  and frightening to be in such great need with nothing to give back.  The idea of someone offering help just because someone needs it must be overwhelming in the extreme for some recipients.  When a person has never experienced anything but exploitation and misery, how can a sense of trust be established?  I have a lot more questions than answers.  I really cannot put myself in her shoes and try to see things from her point of view.
I have seen Amanda and Suzy with both of them over time and up close.  They have nothing but the best for her in mind.  They have gone to great lengths to show that being a Christian means acting as Christ's hands and feet in a very personal way, even in a sacrificial way.  I have seen and felt only love and a huge effort to be understanding and willingness to teach her things she could not have learned on the streets, and to show true Christian love.  There is no hole in their gospel-and no willingness to let things or people just slide by.
It has been difficult to witness.  It has been harder for me to actively be a part of their love and witness to her.  I am ashamed of being so squimish and reluctant.
Christ came to minister to all of us-the clean and the unclean, the rejected and the outcast, the rich and the poor-but especially to the poor, the "untouchables" of society, the helpless.  I have seen how that works-even when rejected.  A most humbling part of my "Lenten study."  They took a huge risk in reaching out to her.  My prayer is that the love they showed to her and Fernando will grow like a seed inside her greater than the baby girl growing inside her, and will give birth to a new and redeemed Mirabel in time.  She has taken a risk in accepting as much as she could tolerate for now.  Unconditional love, especially for those who never experienced it before, is a hard, hard thing to accept.  Love is hard to accept from human or heavenly sources.  My prayer is that she will be able to accept, in time, the love she is due.  She is a precious lamb of God as are all God's children, even when they do not acknowledge it.  It has broken my heart here in Honduras.  I imagine it also breaks God's heart in Heaven.  Yet His love is still free and available to all who will risk accepting that walk with him.  My prayer is for Mirabel, Suzy, Amanda, and me-that we will all continue to serve God, respecting the dignity of all human beings in new ways as we are led.  To be open to rejection and to risk saving the loveless, the homeless, the downtrodden and show that God loves his children and wants us to live with each other.  To patch up that hole in our gospel.  To risk and accept that my gospel needs patching.

Water

Francesca is a loving, generous and gracious woman, maybe in her 70's, who used to take in laundry for a living.  There are no social services here for the elderly, so there is no retirement and no safety net for the poor, sick, that have no family to take of them.  Last week a team of about 6, plus some youth from the Alonzo Movement did a service project for her.  (The Alonzo Movement is an organization of young people dedicated to teaching about Christ and preventing them from the dangers of drugs and gangs.)  Francesca has been quite ill for a period of time and things have literally piled up on her. Her tiny hut (maybe 8X10) was filled with plastic bags full of dirty and mildewed clothing she had meant to wash and sell.  Her ill health was now preventing her from completing this task.
    The team finished their task of emptying her house of unwanted clothes and junk and wanted to mop her cement floor and wash her dirty dishes and sheets..  But alas, there was not a drop of water in the house-not even to drink.  She had been too ill to leave her hut for some time and had no one who could/would get her water or to learn of her need.  The team bought her two 5 gallon jugs of drinking water and left her house cleaner than when they had arrived.  Sadly this scenario is more common than I would like to think about.
    An interesting thing happens here when the cisterns (called pilas) are empty-as they were this morning.   Amanda has found out that she can call the water company and call for a pick-up truck full of water that is then pumped by hose into the cistern in back of the house.  Then a pump inside the house pumps it to the pipes that furnish water for all the faucets.  The 2 big water containers in back of the pick up were emptied just now and it has gone back for more water. The cistern is only half full.  The pick-up truck has now returned and is pumping more water into our cistern.  The 2 large containers appear to be about 3X3X4-2 that fill completely the bed of the pick up.  I hope to find out from Amanda how much water the cistern can hold, and how much it costs.  Our household of 28 can now shower and the kitchen has plenty of water for cooking and washing dishes.  I can't help but think of Francesca and her need.  How different things are when there is money and resources.  Doesn't Francesca deserve the same?
    Because it is Lent and Suzy's devotional this morning  have me thinking about reconciliation, I am drawn to the image of water. A good symbol of reconciliation for me is that of water.  The Bible speaks eloquently of thirsting for water-in the desert, in our lives, and in our spirits.  How thankful I am that God's love reconciles me to him as water quenches thirst, and washes the soul clean.  How humbling to know that God's gift is free and available to all.

Lenten Discipline

Just how hard is it to put oneself in the place of another and walk a mile in their shoes?  How hard it it to forgive and admit mistakes?  Two stories this week illustrate the grace of parties on either side of different issue in real and stunning ways.
Earlier this past week a woman was angry over her child's getting sick.  She didn't really understand the  causes of his illness, and that didn't matter to her.  He was so sick he was hospitalized, and here one does not go lightly into the hospital.  At 18 months of age he could not tell how he felt, but the fever and dehydration were all too evident.  The woman was terrified for his life.  She made some threats towards those she held accountable.  The threats were scary and real.  Then Suzy sat down with all concerned parties and feelings were aired.  The mother apologized to the daycare caregivers that she had overreacted, and the caregivers and staff admitted that the situation could have been better handled.  Both sides made mistakes.  The big thing to me is that they said out loud and to each other what they did to hurt the other and admitted they were wrong.  Both prayed for forgiveness and wisdom in the future.  That takes major courage and grace.  And healing follows.
At SBV the teachers at the Children's Residence had a chance to air some frustrations with the way some things work there and not knowing fully about procedures and how some things are done.  They also had a chance to tell some successes they have had so far this year.  Although they all admitted to being so frustrated early on that they considered resigning, they all kept going and are now seeing how the children are warming up to the routines and learning processes of the school day, and to each other-teachers to students, and students to teachers.  Some children have some learning issues and emotional or behavioral issues that make for challenging days.  Others need extra doses of TLC to get through the day.  The head of the Residence and the counselor, both steeped in psychology and Christian love admitted that the school year had had a hurried start and they had made some mistakes in not preparing some children for the transition back to school, or, in the case of the youngest students, into school from a very limited living space.  It was just too much change too quickly for a smooth transition.  So all parties were able to agree to drop back a bit and start over anew this week.
Sometimes when we get off on the wrong track, how freeing to step back, examine what we have done, admit to not being on top of things and try again.  How much more freeing when people are able to face each other and say some hard things and still have a chance to begin again.
Isn't God very much like that?  Over and over we come up short.  When we are willing to examine our hearts and ask forgiveness, we receive it bountifully.  I think this is my Lenten discipline this year.  To examine my own heart and attitudes and be willing to say aloud I am sorry and to try again to start over.  Repent-change my way of thinking: stop, pause, rethink, and return to a right pathway.

Blasted or Blessed Balance?

We have had a bit of rain here in Honduras this week.  For many it is a welcome relief from the dryness and holds the dust down a bit, for a while.  Not all have benefited from the rain though.  Suzy's house, currently almost roofless, was not helped by being open to the rains that so many welcomed.  Still I was glad for the plants that were so thirsty for water.
Yet too much water can be so destructive.  The hurricanes here that devastate and erode so much land is too much.  The walls of water caused by tsunamis are horrendously destructive.  The videos and photos we are getting via the internet of the massive waves and damage in Japan are horribly mesmerizing.  Watching  a wall of water sweep away cars, trucks, houses, large warehouses is one thing-until you realize with a sickening feeling there are people in those houses and cars.  Old women and men, young children and babies, mothers trying to keep their precious children safe while they themselves are so terrified.  The waves of destruction that follow- fires, flooded fields growing this year's food, possible nuclear meltdowns.  The circles of destruction widens.

Several years ago I was in therapy with a very special woman who taught me many life lessons.  The one that keeps coming coming back to me is the dreaded, blasted "B" word-balance.  Finding the balance between too little and too much of any thing, the balance between extremes is not always easy or self evident.  How much water is enough?  The results of too little or too much destroys life.  Only the right amount is beneficial.
Likewise with other resources-sun, light, food, fuel, wealth, power, influence.  I believe Jesus came into the world to show us the way God wants us to live, to point the way to his Father God..  I believe Christ wants us to live and work and share and live and grow in the fellowship of community in God the Father, Son and Spirit, ever seeking the balance that brings us closer to the life we are meant to live.  The blasted balance word is becoming the blessed balance of abundance in Christ Jesus.
The teams that come to work here, at LAMB and elsewhere, as well as myself, wrestle with the question of balance.  We are blessed with enough resources to be able to come to help a bit, or a lot as our resources and talents allow.  The people here share their abundance of spirituality, of love, of faith, of joy in the Lord.  May God grant that our sharing what we have alllows growth in the Spirit and love of Christ.

Praise, Prayer, and Passion

We had a meeting of the teachers today at SBV.  We started with a devotional that blossomed into a full hour and a half of prase, prayer, thanksgiving and pleas.  The intensity rose until the passion was palpable. 
In the US we don't like to acknowledge, mush less talk about the presence of evil in the world.  It is much nicer and cleaner to just focus on God's love and our many blessings.  In the US many of us have much to be thankful for and so we can focus on the pleasant aspects of our lives.  As I watched the teachers singing and praying, and their passion rising, I realized they live in the midst of the results of real evil in the world.  They teach the children so affected by the evil in the world.  They live in the communities where the evil of poverty and all its many effects plagues the people like the plagues of locusts, flies, frogs, and bloodshed of Moses' time in Egypt.  Children are kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery, fathers rape daughters, children and parents alike go to bed hungry, promising young men are killed for a cell phone by drug users or pushers.  The effects of lack of water are myriad.  Yet in the midst of their cries to God for help, their faces shine with love for God, for each other, for God's many blessings on them.  I saw tears being shed, hands and arms raised to God as they sang and prayed so passionately, and I was moved to the depths of my being. I think this mush have been a scene familiar to David the psalmist, to Isaiah, to Israel in times of the Babylonian captivity.
I can't answer the "why" questions I have-that we all have.  I do believe God put us into community with and for and by each other to stand next to each other in pain, sorrow, and joy.  As Christ healed and taught, prayed, and blessed, I believe we are meant to take that example and do likewise.  To sit with each other in sorrow, to hold each other tightly in times of dread and fear, and to share our joys and blessings with each other in ways that become sacrificial.  To serve the needs of those in our community with the gifts and talents we have been given.