The Reality of Poverty...
It's been a while since I have posted...I think almost a month. That's probably because I have been away for about that long! I am actually on vacation right now, but wanted to post, because I didn't want to wait any longer to share some of what I have been thinking about. About 10 days ago, I returned from a missions trip to Honduras with my youth group. I have traveled a lot over the past years to the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Guatemala, and now Honduras. This trip had me looking with a totally different perspective, now that we have decided to adopt from a third world country. It was eye opening in a totally new way, and a confirmation that the journey we are on is exactly where God wants us, and totally in sync with the passions of our hearts.
While I was in Honduras, two experiences stuck out to me the most. The first was a mile and half hike that we went on with the Pastor, through the rustic paths of Honduras, to get to two homes where we would find ourselves praying with some families of the church. The first house had a man who was severely sick with cancer, but couldn't afford treatment or a way to get to the treatment. He had living with him his entire extended family, including a girl named Paula. She looked so incredibly sad. I got eye level with her, asked for her name, smiled at her, and there was just such a sense of hopelessness. When I was leaving, I called out, "Adios Paula, mi amiga!" She finally broke the cutest smile ever, and for some reason in that moment, my heart was full. I began to think about this incredible journey of getting our little girl in Ethiopia, that is such a privilege for us. I can only imagine how full my heart will be.
The second house we went to was a house of 9 children, and a single mom. The four youngest girls, all under the age of 9, stay home all day long, while mom tries to work and provide for the girls. They have to stay locked up in their house (which by the way is smaller than our shed at home, contains only 4 mattresses to sleep on for the entire family, and is incredibly filthy), because it is too unsafe where they live to be outside where men walk by all the time. My heart sank as we put the few things we had brought for the family (food for about a week that cost less than $15), on the filthy mattresses. Again, there was such a sense of hopelessness and desperation.
All week we were working on construction at the church, building Sunday School space. While working one day, I spent some time talking with a Native Honduran, who was working on site with us. He made next to nothing per day to work. Jared, one of the teens with us, was also working along side of us, and we began to have a conversation with the worker. We quickly found out that in about a month he would begin to walk from Honduras to the US to try to work to provide for his family. Did you catch that? He is going to WALK to the US to find work to provide for his family because he can't make enough in Honduras to provide. The crazy thing is, he's already walked once all the way to San Antonio, only to be sent back. While his story struck a chord in my heart that day, I was struck even more when I found out that the kid I had gotten the closest to that week, playing soccer and joking around with, was this guy's son. I can't even describe to you how that breaks my heart, and the feeling that I have a responsibility to do something about poverty.
Last Sunday, as I was at a church in New Jersey worshiping, I found myself weeping. I could not stop crying, because I kept thinking about Nelson and his family, the family of 9 people, Paula, and the other faces of little Honduran kids we had spent time with all week. I guess I am sharing this with you, because poverty is so real. There is need all over this world. We have a responsibility to act, but not only that, we have a responsibility to share the hope of Christ with this world. And it doesn't take much to do that.
Nate and I get to be a small part of this through our adoption...bringing hope and love to a child who needs it. And it's such a privilege. I feel blessed that God would even allow us to be on this journey. I don't know even know how to write words to describe how Honduras put the reality of this blessing in my life over the past couple of weeks, but I am so grateful for it. But I am praying that God would continue to break my heart with the things that break his, and I would act, helping bring hope and healing to this world. I don't want it to stop with one experience. I want it to be the lifestyle I live out. My prayer is that you would begin to do the same and that together, we can bring justice, peace, and the hope of Christ to the world around us.
Andrea, this post speaks wonders about who you are and what you two are doing...I know you are right where God wants you right now. I still think about your sermon on finding a holy discontent and acting upon it...and when I read things like this from you, I think about how it seems you have found one of your holy discontents in children of other countries, in poverty, and in missions. You are doing great things in the name of God and someday soon you will have the opportunity to pass those passions and that kind of love onto a little one of your own...a little one from one of these countries that is laid upon your heart so heavily. And it will be great to watch. :)
ReplyDeleteI choose Anonymous to post this, something I rarely do, but for reason that I feel it matters what I say be not just attached to me, but could be the words of so many that suffer in poverty. I do not mean to be rude, or a troll, though I know that's likely how it will be taken.
ReplyDeleteI am one that has lived all my life, raised my family, at the edge of poverty. Hard, body breaking work for low wages is more often the life of the poor in the US than the sterotyped lazy welfare riders. As now elderly, unable to work anymore because my body is broken from a life of hard work, and my SS income meager, since its based on a life of low wages, my free fall into full blown poverty was inevitable. I've accepted that, and cope as well as I can manage. Hardest has been becoming invisible, forgotten. Not only can I not afford to "do lunch' with an old friends anymore, so they are gone, but even my family, to my heart break, find it easier to pretend not to see, to offer me advice for finding a job and how they think i could budget better and worst of all, remind me of how much worse off some in the world are. You have the luxury to travel to distant lands, to gawk at the poor "somewhere else" while ignoring the poor in your home neighborhood. You adventure off to a poor distant land, gawk at their plight, shake your head, shed a tear, come back to you comfortable life and say you are blessed by God to have been able to see that. You mentioned gawking at those in terrible substandard housing and living conditions, then turned your efforts, money and labors, to building a church, adding a Sunday School room. Find in you bible even once where God or Jesus ever called for building houses of worship for the poor. Consider upon the words of James, that faith without works is empty, and the works he speaks of are not building sunday school rooms for those so poor they do not have basic neccesities. Consider his words that to tell those in need 'be blessed', while ignoring their material needs unaddressed, is to be a hypocrit. I think what in your essay struck me hardest was that of the little girls' sadness, but how good it made you feel to look back and see her smile. You saw her poverty, you left her behind in it, and feel good she must have liked you, because she smiled at you. How utterly selfish and self-centered you are! Maybe she was thinking, these people have been nice, they have seen our suffering, maybe they will go to find help for us. But you just went home, back to your pretty life, to share with your churchly peers what a blessing it has been to get to go gawk at the poor. And walk away feeling good about yourself for it.