Sharing in Abandonment

 It's always there--like a cloud hanging over everything that happens in our homes.  The underlying reality that each of our residents (and some of our staff) have truly been abandoned and betrayed by those who should have loved them best.

 While our Christmas celebrations were filled with fellowship and joy, there is always a tinge of sadness in what is missing.  Each person around the table realizes that we are not in a "normal" family.  Each person experiencing the pain that their birth families do not even reaching out to them with a text message to let them know they are loved and missed.

I want to say that the love shown in our homes heals this.  When we began Casa de Esperanza I somewhat naively believed that the love we offer, the fact that they are chosen to be loved by us, would eliminate this pain.  Each year I more deeply realize that the wound, though scabbed over, is still there. Our love will never totally eliminate their sense of rejection.  We try our best to help them know and experience the love of the heavenly Father who created them, but it's too often not enough.  Why would a loving Father let these terrible things happen to them?

 Special days like Christmas and birthdays tear the scab off, inflicting the pain of their losses once again. Each celebration needs to recognize and acknowledge this grief gently.  Each of us serving our men and women must enter into their grief, not "spiritualize" it away.  The pain of abandonment is real and persistent.  I believe this is the hardest part of our ministry.  It requires us to have faith that covers both of us at times.  

It calls us to walk into suffering in a unique way.  To recognize the truth of how profoundly they are loved by God.  To share with them concretely this love by the fact of our presence with them.  And at the same time know that we will never be enough.  

Yes, God is enough, but recognizing him in pain is hard.  So we sit and listen, sometimes for hours, on the patio while other are laughing inside.  We hold them as they sob for the family that does not acknowledge them.  To accept their anger at their situation without minimizing it.  We are challenged by our need to hold on to the truth of God's love for them, and us, while facing the pain unjustly inflicted upon them by others.  God gives us the strength to do this, but it takes a toll.

Today, the day after Christmas, I am exhausted.  Not by cooking and baking, but by the call to die to myself to live for another.  To willingly enter into suffering I don't own, but am called to share.  The same is true for each of our team members who do this so well, by the grace of God.

Would you take a few moments today, to pray for those of us who serve with Reason to Hope, to be lifted up, once again, on eagles wings and refreshed.  We need this.

The Meaning of Ministry

I was recently in a meeting where I was asked how Reason to Hope was a ministry.  I understood that the person inquiring was seeking to know how we were more than humanitarian aide.

I have to admit, however, the query took me aback.  Because I am so enmeshed daily in our ministry, I had to pause to think how I could accurately communicate why what we do is ministry.  This made me think, however, that maybe I need to make it clear to more than this one person what I believe, based on Scripture, ministry is about.  And then to explain how we fulfill this ministry.

First, and most importantly, I know I was called by God to serve the disabled in Guatemala.  Not just to evangelize them.  Wherever God calls is us ministry.

Others had shared the gospel with them before, and left them in the same physical situations (often despicable) in which they had found them.  Only spoken words, however true, could not impact their hearts when these folks were still living in environments where they were unloved, unaccepted, even pitied, or worse, rejected.

To interpret the Book of James to our context, God has convicted us of the following:

Suppose a brother or sister is lonely and rejected.  If one of you says to them, "Go in peace; be loved and accepted," but does nothing about their physical, emotional, social and spiritual needs, what good is it?  

In the same way, to tell someone Jesus loves them, without backing it up in action, is at best ineffective. To tell our residents that they are valued and loved by God, and walk away and live my comfortable life, while often they are in deplorable conditions, is hypocrisy at its finest.  To spend a few minutes daily giving them attention, and then walk away and leave them alone and isolated for the majority of their day does not make them experience love and acceptance.  

This reality is what birthed Casa de Esperanza and Hijas del Rey homes.  In our homes, our residents are surrounded by the love and acceptance found only in the love of God.  When we share Scripture, it has power. Our men and women experience the power of the Gospel daily, not only in words but in deeds.  We make disciples not only by teaching the Word, but by living it--loving them, and leading them to love God and others.  We may not reach many, but those we reach we reach profoundly.  Anyone who has spent any time in either of our homes can testify to this.

St. Francis says, "Preach the gospel at all times.  Use words when necessary." I would go even further and say, Üntil I preach the gospel in action, my words are useless and unnecessary."  We serve a Jesus who not only says God loves us, but backs it up in his actions.  Leaving the throne room of heaven, he surrendered to humanness,  meeting human as well as spiritual needs as he shared the truth of God's love.

Truly, the Great Commission is to go and make disciples (not converts, but true Christ-followers).  I believe, however, that to fulfill the Great Commission, we need to back up our testimony with the Great Command. 

When I love God with my whole mind, and heart, and will and strength, only then am I able to love my neighbor as myself.  And I demonstrate this love by meeting the human needs God places before me.  This is Biblically supported by the story of the sheep and goats in Matt. 25.  I canot share in words what I do not live out in service.

 

I never want to hear my Jesus say,

"Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."