How do I describe the indescribable? How do I echo grateful sobs from a Honduran mother thanking me for giving monthly financial gifts to her daughter? How do I show you the tin shanties and wild roaming dogs I saw in Honduras? The eager schoolchildren waiting for pencils, erasers, and toys? I am not a professional blogger who took professional pictures during my week-long stay. My husband is making a documentary both for ChildFund International, our church, and possibly for the other organization we volunteered with for a day. He's the professional filmmaker. I am the writer. I can only rely on my words and I find now, two days in the United States, that words fail me. But because I am a writer and I need to share my experiences, I will humbly try to do the best I can, hoping God will lead my fingers as they type.
Before departing, I had prayed the dangerous prayer that Jennifer Dukes Lee had prayed in her blog, Getting Down With Jesus, in this post: "When You Pray for a Heartbreak."
That post inspired me so much and planted the prayer that I held throughout the trip:
Lord, break my heart.
It was a dangerous thing for this sensitive woman to pray. I cry at Hallmark commercials. I cry when I see a deer dead at the side of the road. How would I handle seeing the poor and needy by the side of Honduran roads? How could I stand to see such sadness? How could my fragile heart possibly make it through this trip alive?
But I knew I could not turn a blind eye. I knew my heart pumped for the poor in pocketbook and in spirit. My heart bled for those who needed love. That was part of why my family and I sponsor two children from afar: Daniela in Honduras and Selpia in Indonesia. Actually coming face to face with that need would be difficult, but I knew that I had to have my eyes opened. My comfortable American sleep must life from my eyes.
I did not want to settle for feeling satisfied having that money automatically taken out of our checking account every month and saying, well I'm glad we're doing that. We're helping a child in need. And while corresponding with Daniela for eight years has been a true blessing and treasure, I wanted to look into her eyes, this girl I had known through the lines of paper since she was four and a half years old....I needed to feel her hand in mine. Or put my arms around her, if she'd let me.
And the overall difference in Honduras. Yes, I knew my heart had been pointing stronger toward the needy since becoming a Christian, but I also knew I was at a point where God wanted me to follow Him deeper into the real world.
And so I walked. Husband, Lee (I will finally reveal his name so to better narrate our story), Stepdaughter whom I will call Ashley (must consider a teenager's privacy), and I walked.
I cannot hope to write everything I encountered and experienced down in one blog entry so I shall have to work on this over the course of many entries. I thank you for grace and patience as I capture words that flit around me like moths --
yet if I have learned one thing from this trip which I can mention right now, it is this:
someone can see a moth...and someone else can see a butterfly.
Until next time...
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