The Next Step

About a week ago, I was talking with J about the orphanage he and AR are planning out. They bought 5 acres of land in a mountainous region and want to grow vegetables and produce eggs and milk for the orphanage with enough left over to sell to people outside the orphanage. He started talking about chickens and I immediately mentioned my experience with chickens and how much I love them. Then the subject of sheep came up, where I immediately objected because I hate sheep and also suggested goats, because goats are awesome. The next question from J was whether or not I knew anything about making cheese. Well, let me tell you about the number of times I made goat cheese in my kitchen... :D

They’re making plans to build a number of houses there. Not big dorm rooms where the kids would be divided by age and gender and then came together for meals in a huge cafeteria. J and A believe that no child should grow up in a dorm room eating in a cafeteria, so they’re building houses to house the kids. Each house would have 4 to 5 kids under the care of one “house mom.”

My heart leapt. How many times had I joked about needing to find a “Honduran camp”? A place that combined my love and skills with animals with my passion for orphans and all located in Honduras. I had joked about it many times, but on the inside, I longed for it desperately. I kept it to myself because I didn’t think it was something that could ever become a reality. I didn’t know how I would even begin to build something like that, and I surely didn’t think a place like that existed.

At the time, the only help I offered was in giving advice and picking out chickens, because I didn’t want to jump into a commitment without knowing that it was something God wanted me to do. I decided to proceed prayerfully and as I prayed my initial “ok, God, I’m going to pray about this for a while” prayer, He told me 5 days. I was leaning toward praying for a week like I did when I made my decision to move here, but He clearly told me just 5 days, so I eagerly agreed to it and set about to waiting upon the Lord.

Fast forward four days, and I was invited out to eat by S, one of the teachers at the school who speaks English. She had brought along a friend of hers, An, who is from Pennsylvania and is working here as a missionary at an orphanage. S also volunteers her time at that orphanage, nicknamed Hogar. S works with the teenage girls, taking just a few out every week for dinner or a movie or a walk around the mall, mentoring them and helping them figure out life. After An, S, S’s kids and I had our own fun outing, I got a tour of Hogar when we were dropping An off.

It was a huge orphanage, comfortably housing about 90 kids. They had dorms spread out around the large property, separated by a big grassy field where the kids were running around and playing. There, the kids all eat in a big cafeteria setting and live in dorms separated by age and gender. They have to clean their room and other areas every night, including the stacks of dishes in the kitchen.

I had barely been there a minute when one of S’s girls gave me a big hug in greeting. I felt her brokenness like a punch in the gut and knew God was about to awaken a part of me that I had forgotten about, pushed to the side, and made to be silent. In the under 3 nursery area, a boy around 1 reached up to me so I held him as the other kids gathered around to watch me as well. He just wanted to be held. Little ones rarely have more demands than to be fed, dry, and held.

As I waited for S outside while she dealt with a “bathroom issue” with her son, I got summoned by a group of 6 or so pre-teen boys who were gathered around a table. They had laid out on the table a multitude of earrings that they were trying to sell to raise money for some type of activity. They were quite the salesmen, with many exclamations of how beautiful the various pairs were, and how the one pair came with a bracelet, and how cheap they were... Sadly for them I didn’t have many small bills on me and I strongly suspected they wouldn’t have change for what I had. I am hoping to go back soon with smaller bills and buy some... They were pretty earrings.

We then got to the younger kids’ housing area, for ages 4 to 9. One girl there ran up to me with open arms and I eagerly accepted her, lifting her up to me. She smiled at me after I gave her a kiss on the cheek and only then bothered with an “Hola!” She proceeded to ask me how I was and point things out to participate as some of the other kids were showing S around their living areas. I carried her over to the boys’ side of the young kids’ dorm where they had a GIANT stuffed bear that had been donated by Coca Cola which the boys apparently like to sleep on. Laid out, the bear was probably over half the size of a twin mattress, so that was neither surprising or unreasonable.

It was time to head back to the car, and I regrettably put down my new friend, giving her several more kisses and a tight hug. I was mostly quiet on the way back, asking S questions so she would talk and not ask me what I had thought of the orphanage. My emotions were swirling and I needed some time to process everything I was feeling. It felt like my heart had been broken and stolen in the most wonderful way, but also in a way that meant I had to do something about it.

So there was my answer. Orphans. I was always meant to help orphans. I have always had a heart for the broken, and I have always wanted to help the lost children find their way into God’s Kingdom. I don’t know what the next step will be. I am hoping to go with J and some others on Saturday to see the property that God’s given him for their orphanage. Maybe God will give me more direction then. Maybe I am supposed to help them.

All I know right now is that working at the school and being here in San Pedro was the first step. When God and I were talking the other day, I felt like He was about to entrust me with something huge because I had been faithful with something small, and I was quick to make excuses. He said He was going to do something big with me, and I said I’m just one person. Then He reminded me of the passage I had read just that morning in Hebrews. Chapter 11 gives a whole list of “heroes of the faith” including Abraham, Abel, Rahab, Moses, Jacob, and so many others. Then Chapter 12 starts off with this verse:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1-2)

God reminded me by name of a couple of the people on that list, as well as Paul, whose letters I’ve been reading through, and that each one of them was just one person. It’s not up to me to question what the Lord has for me to do. It’s not up to me to question who the Lord made me to be. It’s not up to me to decide what I can and cannot do. God is God, and if He says He’s going to do great things through me, then it’s all the more a miracle because I know He’ll be able to do things through me that I can’t do myself. Nobody in the Bible who is considered a great hero of faith did so on their own. All they had was the sense to step aside and let God work through them, and so He did.

I am continuing to pray daily for God to increase my faith and guide my steps. He has already blessed me with a number of friends here as well as awesome students at school (I will hopefully get together a list of fun school stories very soon). He has also blessed me with a true hunger for reading His word, which I do daily not out of a sense of duty, but out of an excitement to be able to get into His word every morning.

Please continue to pray for me as I pray for all of you. Pray that God will keep bringing people into my path that I can connect with. Pray that God continues to break down my walls and pride when it comes to communication. Pray that I don’t take another step without Him and that everything would be made clear in His perfect timing.

My prayer for all of you:

I pray that you will see God in everything, no matter where you are.

I pray that you will have the same or even a greater hunger than I have for reading His word.

I pray that you will take time to reflect and see what areas in your life are from God and where you’ve allowed the enemy to work.

I pray that you will see the bigger picture that God has for your life and that you will not be discouraged to follow through with the plans He gave you.

I pray that you will continue to seek His faith and grow into a deeper and deeper understanding of His love for you.

Amen.

P.S. If any of those prayers really stood out to you, please let me know so I can pray more with you, and please don't ignore the nudge you may have felt. That nudge was from Him, so ask Him what your next step should be.

Exodus

exodus - noun - a mass departure of people, esp. immigrants; withdrawal; evacuation; leaving

I was reading in Joshua yesterday and read about the Israelites packing up to enter into the promised land. Joshua was told to give the people three days to pack up all their belongings and be ready to go. It’s the little details like that which I would normally skim over, not really pay attention to, or not take the time to think about. But considering I just moved to a different country in the span of about 3 weeks, I noticed it this time.

A month ago, I couldn’t imagine having only weeks or days to consolidate your entire life into a couple suitcases and starting life all over again in a foreign country. But when I had reached my lowest point and was finally ready to listen to God, He basically told me to do just that. There were 40 days from the day that God told me to go until the day I arrived here in Honduras, and 32 days from the day I bought my ticket.

For me, it wasn’t as simple as packing a couple bags and going. I had over 3 truckloads of stuff that I had to move from camp to my parents’ house after sorting through which of it I wanted to take with me, what I should just sell, what I wanted to be stored, and what should just be tossed. It was a painful process not only because of the sheer volume of stuff to be gone through, but also because I really hate sorting and organizing and packing and all that nonsense. Don’t get me wrong, I like things to be organized. I just don’t like going through the process of organizing to get there.

So, here’s my personal exodus story.

Thursday night I finished packing somewhere around midnight. It took me about 7 hours including breaks and not including the sorting of clothes and other things I had done a few days earlier. We had to leave around 3am to get to the airport by 4am to make my 6am flight, so I got a couple hours of sleep and was as ready to leave as I was going to get, ignoring the small list of things I hadn’t done before leaving that I had planned on doing. Oh, well.

However, God had other plans, and too much snow in New Jersey (why that was where my layover was, I’ll never know since it takes me in the opposite direction of Honduras...) meant my flights were cancelled. I long time on hold with the booking company and I was able to go online to check my new flights, which left early Saturday morning and took me through Houston instead (thereby lessening the chance of flights being delayed or cancelled due to inclement weather).

So, I got an extra day in which I was able to buy a few more school supplies (I now have enough stickers and red pens to last a lifetime... hopefully), get more cash from the bank (and find out why the ATM hated me the night before), and see some camp staff at the reunion I was going to miss (as well as my BFF/cousin who I would have seen had I been packed sooner than 4 hours before leaving for the airport). Then, I had to repack a little to add my new purchases, and to put in my tripod which I had forgotten before.

My Saturday morning flight was a few minutes earlier and I stayed up a few hours later, so I got a nice hour and a half nap before my parents took me to the airport. After paying an outrageous amount in overweight baggage fees (next time, I will seriously consider just buying an extra ticket... it might have been cheaper that way), I got to my gate and had to wait just over an hour, which was marvelous. At some point, an employee came over and tagged my guitar and said it might have to go below if there was no room on the plane and I smiled politely but thought he was hilarious if he thought he was going to take my guitar from me.

At some point when I was in Honduras before, my computer became my security blanket. In the States, my phone usually serves that purpose. Somehow it seems that whenever I’m nervous or uncertain, everything is better if I have that object with me. On this trip, it had become my guitar, and they were not going to put it below where it could be easily broken. I had seen how baggage people handled luggage, and was not going to risk my guitar falling into their hands.

So, I carried my guitar on with me, somehow escaping the notice of the flight attendants as it sat comfortably between my knees, until it was too late. The door was closed and they were doing their final cabin checks before take-off when they noticed I had the guitar with me. Since they weren’t able to take it below at that point, they ended up taking the backpacks of myself and the guy next to me, finding space for them in the overhead compartments, and I wrestled my guitar under the seats in front of us. They made me put it all the way to the wall which meant the guy next to me had to straddle it with his feet (thank God for him; he was extremely tolerant of me and my guitar), and that was that.

My layover in Houston was only an hour, so by the time I got off the plane and to the other side of the airport, I had barely sat down before they started boarding. Once again, they tagged my guitar to go below and once again I thought they were silly. When I got to the plane, another guitar and a small pile of carry-on’s sat beside the plane to go below. Exhausted and suddenly growing increasingly aware of the fact that I was leaving the country, I held tight to my guitar and walked onto the plane with it.

This time, I was immediately noticed by one of the flight attendants, who told me I had to leave it outside to go below. I told him I was taking it with me with as much confidence as I could muster, but he told me again to leave it outside. I asked him if it was going to get broken and he assured me there was a special compartment and that I would be able to get it back as soon as we landed. I walked back off the plane to leave it with the other guitar and started crying. They had taken my guitar from me.

I cried all the way to my seat in the very back of the plane, row 38, sniffling and texting my laments to several friends as I went, ignoring the comments of a woman in first class about how “people these days are constantly connected on their phones and don’t ever look up to see the real world.” She didn’t know that I was trying desperately in my last moments on US soil to be connected with people I would see for months or longer and to avoid weeping openly on the plane because they took my guitar and because I felt tired and alone and scared and broken.

I slipped into the bathroom as soon as I shoved my backpack under the seat in front of me and cleaned myself up as best I could before returning to my seat. Fortunately for me and everyone around me, my tears had dried up by then and I avoided a complete emotional meltdown. I honestly can’t imagine many things worse than having a complete emotional meltdown on a plane surrounded by strangers. At that point, the only thing I knew for sure I was crying about was the fact that they had taken my guitar, and would not have seemed a thing worth crying over.

Once I had suffered through take-off (plane flights are great fun for someone who had a lot of ear infections as a child and whose ears therefore do not pop easily or painlessly), I pulled out my journal and began writing. As I wrote, I was then able to figure out that I was more upset about the fact that I was leaving everything I had built in the States at camp, that I was exhausted (which always frays my emotions), and that I was scared about starting life over or that I would doubt my decision to return to Honduras. When I had in writing what was going on inside me, it was easy to deal with. I accepted that those were the things that I was feeling, and I told myself that it was ok if I was sad for a little while. As my “sister” once told me “Leaving is always hard.” It doesn’t matter if leaving is the right decision or if you have total peace about it or if it’s what God has for you. It’s still hard, and it still sucks.

So, I gave myself permission to be sad for a little while, but I did NOT give myself permission to dwell in that sorrow or to let that sorrow become depression. I can’t always look behind me at what I lost. I have to look forward to the promise that God has given me and I have to look around me at what God has given me now.

The Israelites built a life for themselves out there in the desert. Yes, they were expert packers after 40 years of wandering in the desert so 3 days probably sounded like a fair amount of time to get everything together, but that was their life. And God asked them to pack it all up and go on to something else: the promised land. Even though the promised land was better than what they had, I imagine that it was still hard for many of them to leave the life that they had simply because that was the life they knew. Change is hard.

I spent a year and a half at camp, wandering around in the desert, building a life for myself to prove that I could do life my way without God. When that didn’t work out for me and I finally stopped to listen to what God had for me, He told me to pack up and leave. The Israelites crossed the Jordan to go to the promised land, and I crossed both land and sea to get to my promised land, but I’m here now. And now, I can build a life for myself here, even though I’m a foreigner here. Even though I don’t yet speak the language. Even though I don’t have a lot of friends here. Even though I’m afraid.

Although one of my fears was that I would doubt, I haven’t. When I was greeted by la directora de la escuela, her 3 kids, and her mother who I had lived with before, I almost wept again, but that weeping was not one of sorrow or of loss. It was the sweet relief of knowing that I had arrived mixed with the bitter taste of regret for having ever left. But because I couldn’t explain myself fully and because I’m still not very good at showing my emotions (especially in big public places like airports), I held back my tears and put on my brave face, telling myself I could cry by myself if necessary.

I soon found out that I will be living with a missionary couple from the States, so I will be able to freely speak English with them. That alone is a huge relief. At church this morning, I was reunited with a number of people I had loved before, and even though I wasn’t able to talk much with them, I was greeted with open arms and many blessings. I met a couple there who speak English, and the woman is a teacher at the school. We had lunch with them after church and we got to talk quite a bit. She understands my feelings of being alone here and not able to easily make friends, and wants to introduce me to one of her girlfriends who works at an orphanage and is also from the States. I’m so excited about and thankful for all the people God has already placed in my path.

This weekend, I stayed with Pastor’s family, and tomorrow I will get to go to school and afterward, to J and A’s house, where I will be living. As I’m writing this, it’s Sunday night, almost midnight, but I’ll have to wait til school tomorrow to post this. We’re leaving early tomorrow morning, but my afternoon nap stretched for almost 4 hours, so we’ll see how long I end up staying up.