Things I never thought to be thankful for...

I have been processing through a lot of situations lately... life situations that are somewhat normal down here. Sometimes when I try to put myself in someone else´s situation, it gets overwhelming. The best way to put it, I guess, is that I never thought to be thankful for things that I thought were a given in life. For example...

I never thought to be thankful that I didn´t have to raise my own siblings. I never thought to be thankful that I didn´t have to root through garbage (in fact, I was strongly discouraged from rooting through the garbage=). I never thought to be thankful that someone took care of me when I was sick.

The background to these situations? Well,

Last week INFAH told my parents about a 16-year old girl. She and her 1-year old brother had been abandoned by their mother. So, the girl found a man to live with, to take care of her and her brother. When INFAH called, the man had abandoned them as well, and the girl is pregnant and caring for her little brother. INFAH wanted to know if there was room for them to live in Buen Pastor. Her story hit me hard, because I don´t think I would ever imagine such a story. It never occurred to me, when I was 16, that I should be thankful that my parents raised us--it seemed like a given.

We have a woman here in Misericordia named Maita, and she is often a highlight to my day. I am not sure what her "diagnosis" is, but she always asks the same questions... "Will you play jacks with me?" and "When are we going to my house?" She also laughs very hard every time she sees me, which makes me laugh (I try not to get offended;). Anyway, if Maita gets outside the gate, she immediately starts looking through trash. It is her instinct. Tonight we took the Misericordia and Buen Pastor girls to dinner, and Maita made a comment about how "pretty" her empty soda bottle was (for trash, plastic bottles are a good find). I just think, really? In the U.S., we even train our pets not to get into the trash, and yet here, this precious woman, who can´t remember one conversation to the next without repetition, instinctively goes to trash to look for plastic bottles. I never thought to be thankful that I was someone throwing trash out, instead of being someone bringing it in to find my family´s next meal.

The reason we took everyone to dinner tonight is because Yoly (age 18) passed her 6th grade final exam. In Honduras, this is a big deal because now she is eligible to get a job and she can go into high school. So we celebrated, hoping to also encourage the other girls to keep working hard. Unfortunately, Yoly has been having some health issues lately, and the food didn´t go well with her. When my parents and I got back later, Javier (the four-year old) came to our door telling us to come help Yoly. I went down to her room, and she was on the floor of the bathroom throwing up. I squeezed in (she was kinda blocking the door) and, because I am no nurse, held her hair out of her face and rubbed her back. That is what my mom always did for me whenever I was sick. Standing there, I thought how lonely it must have been to be there on the floor, hurting, and unable to control your body. I think I always assumed that it was my parents´responsibility, their job, to be there with me when I was sick. I don´t think I was ever thankful for the comfort of knowing that someone cared that I was hurting, and that someone wanted me to get better.

Needless to say, I was thanking and praising God as I cleaned up that bathroom, washed the mop, and told the girls "Good night" tonight.

I was thinking about the verse in Matthew, where Jesus says to the righteous, "For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me." I have heard this verse plenty of times, even read entire books based on this verse, but still, I think I always took it figuratively. You know, I thought we were just supposed to do nice things for other people. But lately I have been thinking, No, there really are Hungry people, and Thirsty people, and Sick people. There really are people who need clothes, who need to be welcomed in, and who need someone to visit them, even if it means visiting them in prison. Jesus is not using figurative language to speak about abstract needs, but rather these are real conditions, and in much of the world, normal conditions. Jesus said, "And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’" I pray that God will constantly remind me that these people are His, and no matter how humbling the task, I am working for Him.

Most of all, I pray that the 16-year old girl would know that she has a Heavenly Father who will never abandon her. That Maita, every time she is given food, will know that God is her Provider. And that Yoly, though she may be sick and suffering some tough things, would know God as her Great Healer and Refuge.

"Normal" day

What is a typical day like in Honduras? Today has been pretty "normal", so I thought I could share its events on here...

• 7am (ish) - Get up, go out to wash clothes. I love doing the laundry in the morning, because it iscool out and washing by hand is a very mindless task. It helps me wake up and get my mindgoing. Usually some of the girls from Buen Pastor will come out and chat, too, so that is alwaysnice.
• 7:30 (ish) - Come back in, have some quiet time. I am going through My Utmost for His Highestright now, so I usually read the devotion, read the context of the corresponding scripture, andcopy it in Spanish (I am trying to get used to scripture in Spanish!!).
• I eat breakfast, and get ready for the day... no particular time...
• This morning I did some sewing. I am fixing some shirts for a friend, and also my mom and I have been making bed sheets for the girls in Misericordia. In any down time, there is usuallysome sewing to be done.
• We needed more thread, so my mom and I walked into town and bought some. Two spools ofwhite thread for the machine, and three zippers for purses that one of the girls is making... 12 limpira (which is about 75 cents). Crazy!
• We got back, I sewed a little more, then we ate lunch. Today we had turkey sandwiches, grapes, chips and a really good salsa that my mom made.
• This afternoon some of the Buen Pastor girls had an activity at school, so their babies are herewith the tia. I have been playing with some of the Misericordia girls and Javier and Gloria. Ourfriend Krista from home teaches students with special needs, so she gave us lots of ideas forthings to do with the girls. Today we took paintbrushes and water and painted the concrete. Itwas so sunny that the water would dry in about 15sec, so we kept busy for a while. We playedwith hula hoops and a punch balloon, then some of the girls colored.
• Right now Javier is sitting in the office with me working on an ABC puzzle. He will startpre-school in August at the same school where I will be teaching!!
• Not too sure what the exact plan for the evening is, but the girls get picked up at 4pm and atsome point we will eat dinner, and we will have devotions at 7:15pm tonight.

Today is a Tuesday... On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings my mom and I go to the Hogar to teach English with the kids. On Wednesday afternoons I do dance class with the girls at the Hogar, too.

So... a this is a typical, calm day. Some days are not so calm, but that is another post in itself=)