Cloudy Goggles

Most days at the projects I am awakened by a text, phone call, or knocking on my door. Most nights are spent reviewing my inbox and trying to reply to as much as I can and give as much detail as possible before my eyes cross and head hits the keyboard. The kids have a box that they can place their questions, concerns, complaints, and special requests in. The staff tends to use text or email.

Last night, I had seven emails from one person within an hour. All of them explaining situations and describing current frustrations.

My natural response is frustration and anger. The feelings apply to not just the person the email is written about, but towards the writer as well. So much time is needed to pour into, mold, create, develop a person/worker of excellence. When a typical reaction would be to fire and get rid of the problem. My heart is to pause, pray, evaluate, train, correct, and develop both parties into the employee that we so desperately need.

He said and she said happens all the time. Not just here. It is a plague that has infested the church and the body of Christ. How quick we are to act and react! Why don’t we hesitate and contemplate the ENTIRE situation, then with calm give a response. The way we respond to it separates us from being just average and a true disciple. What would happen if in the pause we looked through their eyes?

REACTING! Not only do the employees do this. I DO THIS! I do this not just with workers, but with kids in the orphanage. Not just those kids, but my own kids. Worse, I do it with my life partner. What spouse wants someone that will respond with haste? I don’t that is why I normally reply in bitter angst. Yours truly. I do that! Me! The one with the heart of gold. Haha. Last week I think I made a confession to my dad that someone demanded something of me recently. I didn’t do it. He snickered. I was feverishly angry. “Ask me for help, I will dedicate my life to it! Demand something from me, my feet will become stuck in cement as my arms fall off my side.” That is me!

Maybe that is why with our staff you don’t find me dictating. I will not command or demand. I let them be the mom of the house. When I see issues I will step in, draw attention to a problem area, and suggest a different way of handling it. Nobody wants to be ruled with an iron fist. Look through their eyes, understand the why, the frustration, the education or lack there of, then with love we can correct. No house mom is working just for the money. They wouldn’t last. The current group of staff members is there because of LOVE. Love for Him, Love for them.

My reply to the rambling email complaints was all of that paragraph above. This immediately brought on an additional three emails full of apologies, prayers, and asking for more help. Amazing how when we address things calmly and with love the response that we get in return!

You know the saying, "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar"? Most of my family HATES those words. We are all independent, leaders, and we tend to be controlling so that we can get the job done the RIGHT way the FIRST time. Then I married someone just like that. Why? Because I was dumb and didn’t weigh the frustration that I would feel in having someone like that permanently by my side. Behind that, is the fact that God knew,  I need someone to stand by my side to get things done. I didn’t need someone that would sit on his butt until I was run over by the bus I was trying to stop on my own. I needed someone just as strong and powerful to stop the bus with me, or to push me out of the way when it wasn’t worth my effort. Now if I can remember to only see that side!

The basis for all help and assistance the root of it all is LOVE. What motivates you most in life? Are we not all passionate about making life beautiful and wonderful for the ones we love most? A man will work 20 hours a day to provide for his wife and children. (Driven by love.) A woman will work a 12 hour shift and come home to cook, clean, and do homework. (Again it is for love.) If something needs to change, if there is something wrong… How do you motivate the ones around you to change? Through LOVE!

Me loving you is showing you, changing you, growing you. It doesn’t matter if it is work, family, or friends. If you don’t do it for love you won’t stick with it for long. If a subconscious or material need is met by working your butt off, you will eventually become bitter with your boss. If you love what you do because of WHO you do it for and because of what will be produced, at the base you will find love.

 I do it for them... 

which in turn is for Him!

Haunting Prayers

There have been a few times in my life that I have known that I am right where I am supposed to be. Most the time I kind of guess and assume. Sometimes I am SO convicted to do something that I lose sleep. Right now, is one of those moments. I can tell. I know because of the emotional, mental, and physical obstacles I have been facing. I know. I am right where He wants me.

On occasion their faces plague me. They spin around in my dreams and stop randomly on two in particular. I find myself awake in the middle of the night praying. I am determined to make a difference.

One of them is a man I have been reaching out to. He isn’t in the best of situations. I have forced my partner in crime to accompany me to visit him at least once a week. Resentful at first, a month later Nilsson is pushing me to go twice a week. We sit, we talk, we visit. I ask questions, the man answers, half of his replies are covered in lies. I know this, but I don’t care. There is something about him. We took my dad to meet him. Now I think he may be becoming his best friend. Not really, but he for sure found a soft spot in my dads heart. The other day I found out Nilsson now visits him without me. This is a little scary. We went from not interested to bi-daily chats.

In a group setting I asked if I could pray for some of the members that surrounded us. They accepted. Then I called on “him”. I asked him to pray. To pray for himself, to pray for the group around us. He said he would pray with me, but not lead. He admitted in a group of people that would likely judge him for faith that he would accompany me in the prayer. It was a start. I accepted. We prayed.

A couple weeks later he admits to my father that his grandpa was a pastor. Interesting that someone labeled as the worst of the worst of people you could possibly want to know in this life has been rooted in the word. He knows the Bible. He believes in the Bible. He is asking for the Word. He knows where true life is found. He has never forgotten his roots.

A murderer. An addict. An abuser. A liar. A thief. An adulterer. An extortioner. We have tons of negative labels that are placed on people in this world. You and I are not exempt. Whether it was big or small every one of us is plagued with a piece of guilt from some place in our past. We have a label. When we call on God, He sees NONE of this. All He can see is a child of His. Lost or found, He can see you. He cares. The church was found, the Bible it was written, His son was given, all for you. Not for perfection, but for every flaw you would have. His blood was shed.

We all are born with a basic knowledge of this. We know, deep down, there is something more, something larger.  Our families are rooted in it. Yet sometimes it is hard to just surrender. A family history of ministry isn’t necessary. It is engrained from the moment we are conceived.

My little friend. His face spins in my head. I see him when I go to sleep. I am haunted with it as I awake. So I pray for him. And I know that if I continue to show the love he will come around. It is in our visits. Our talks. Our simple prayers that he will come around.

Prayer, no matter how big or small, prayer makes a difference. 

Breaking

Just a break

That is all. That’s it. A break. I want to wake up and not see your face. I want to walk outside and not have you greet me. I want to enter a store or a clinic without you asking for something. I want a day, an hour, even just a minute of peace and rest.

I am exhausted. I feel plagued. I have spent two weeks wanting to write. Two weeks thinking, processing, now I have silence… Then another clang is at my gate. Shhhh… I want a sign that says baby sleeping. You wouldn’t be able to read it.

I want a guard that sends you away and tells you to leave me alone. You wouldn’t understand it.

I pay you to take my garbage so you can find food amongst the smelly leftovers and buy water to drink. I give you my moldy clothes and broken sandles so you can be clothed. And daily you ask me for more. Daily you find me. I buy your half rotten oranges because I wonder what it would be like if it was all I had to offer the only form of survival. I offer you my last tortilla praying with every ounce of my being my husband will have a patient today so he can bring home dinner.

Then I watch. I watch your young children come with your babies hoping I will give medicine. I make them laugh. I play with them trying to catch a twinkle in the deepest parts of their eyes. I touch them giving them the only form of healthy affection that they will most likely ever know in their lives. I get annoyed by the frequent visits as I turn to go back inside.

I listen as the judge comes and tells me about the most recent sex traffickers being caught. I hear a name I recognize. It was her.

I begged to be left alone. I pleaded for silence. Now I am consumed by the guilt and the bitter frustration that I didn’t step in sooner. The voice that once annoyed me I wonder if I could have helped. The banging and knocking, the pleads for assistance. What if I had stopped and truly listened? What if my plans and to-do lists had been set to rest for an hour or two? Would it have changed your future? Could I have saved your pain?

There is no training. There is no preparation. The frustration. The guilt. The anger. The bitterness. The helplessness. Nothing could ever prepare me for the emotions I feel.

My heart aches. I think it is breaking into pieces. There is a love I know to be so pure. So kind. So genuine. I want to share it. I want to pour it out. I want to take each and every one of them and place them in the most beautiful crystal encasing and show them what it is to truly be a princess. A King. A Savior. A Provider. A Healer. The One that can change it all. The One that intended for all things good and beautiful, to know and be known. How would she ever know? How can she ever comprehend? Did He hear her cry? Does He see her tears? You can say yes, but when it only feels like a NO what is left?

She questions her birth? I tell her of a purpose and a destiny. She wonders if I’m drugged. If only she weren’t living. I assure her there is a bigger picture. One she can’t see. One she can’t trust. If the bigger picture was always there than why did she suffer the hurt?

Questions. Answers. Questions. Thoughts. Questions without answers.

Preparation? A life full of love. Pre-requisite? Willing heart. Duties? Too many to name.

Looking for someone to help fill some shoes. The one that walked before me left an impression to big for me to fill. Please send some extra hands and feet. 

Strange Isolation

This goes to a different level of personal. This has nothing to do with the ministry so you don't have to continue reading. This is just a personal hiccup. 

Standing in a room surrounded by hundreds of people. I feel so alone. It happened twice today.

First, we had Isabellas Christmas Show. Unless we wanted to move to the capital, Isa is in the best school on the coast. Not because we fit in with the rest of the people. Simply because a parent wants the best for their child. And here the best only offers a public school curriculum from the U.S. and the American teachers to back it. The sacrifice, for us, is worth it. It is funny as I look around the gymnasium. I kind of had a laugh. She is in a school with kids that come from better families. To put it into something you can understand. The children of the Honduran T.G.Lee and children of United Airlines in her class. The Paris Hilton of Central America can be seen walking down the school halls. Sweet Bella, the child of a humble dentist and foreign missionary. What glory! Laugh! I give you permission. It is what I wanted to do. 

Surrounded with people that I am afraid to talk to. 

Then, we had a Christmas Party!!! Fun, right? Not so much. I was surround by plastic stitched doctors and their wives. Yea, that category hits me. Hitched to an Oral Surgeon in the 2nd poorest country in this hemisphere. Taadaa! He is an associate in the only medical complex you want to visit. They swipe the coast from Trujillo on. Unless you can get to San Pedro, they can't be beat. That being said. The room is full of doctors married to doctors. The only way for you to "make" something of yourself if you don't own all the milk for 500 miles? Study and become a professional. Gynecologists married to pediatricians. Anesthesiologists with dentists. Obstetricians with neurologists. Why? It is the only way to survive in a country with a quarter of the income and same cost of living as the United States. It is cheaper to have a house keeper/nanny than to pay day care. We don't have one, sure would make my life easier. I could have Jayden here if I did. 

Feeling lonely. Inadequate. Ugly. Like flubber. 

I see perfection, beauty, and...

people that just don't care. 

People that greet with hugs and kisses. Asking how life and the cl..., what do you do again? I'm the oddball. Not just up in the States, here to. "Oh, thats right. You have all those kids." Quick, time to move on before this girl makes you feel guilty. 

I have learned to be silent. I answer what is asked. I push nothing else on people. Mr. Wonderful on the other hand seems to have some chip in him that says "make them all feel like crap!" He will talk all night about me and what I do. He likes them getting uncomfortable. 

The clock is quickly reaching midnight. Tapping Nilssons arm, "I need to go. I have to finish Christmas Baskets. I promised to make the cupcakes again." 180 cupcakes for the first feeding station await me. I stayed up until 4:30 in the morning and now I can't sleep. I only have to frost them and should probably get started. 

I have the worst job in the world. I am told this all the time as people watch me cry when the judge removes a child. Or when people see me pick a new one up. "Gringa, I could never do your job." My back hurts. My feet hurt. My heart hurts. I work longer hours than a doctor in residency. I love harder than 80% of the parents in this world. I will give you my shoes and I will go barefoot. 

But PLEASE, don't make me sit through another night like tonight. If the word sacrifice isn't in your vocabulary I feel like I can't be near you. And I? I should be proud and not insecure by why I am here. Something for me to work on. 

The Silence

It is quiet, cold, and thick. I don't know the words to say or how to act. The social worker greets me giving a list of ideas. Thoughts on paper, but no one knows.

The psychologist can confirm nothing. I am nervous and uncomfortable which is crazy. I have done this before. Still, silence seems like my best option. 

She is nine. She looks a little bigger than my niece that is turning four. She is nine. She is silent. She says not a word. Her belly looked like it was going to burst. Lack of nutrition, parasites, and her roots never having been grounded in love. I'm still staring. She isn't the worst of the cases I have seen. It is her silence that has gotten to me. 

The head of the region looks at me and says, "She is a challenge, but I think you are the right fit. If anyone can help her, it is you. Your homes are the best we have got. Your attention to her needs is exactly what it will take. You are our hope." Blinking, I scratch my head. I'm not sure of what he said. Our homes have so much room to improve. On any given day I can give notebook pages covered with ideas, staff members that I desire, activities to implement, I feel so inadequate. We are the best? How sad to hear! I know deep down we could be. It is the money and volunteers that I lack. 

Still pondering and staring, "Is it a yes? Will you take her?"  I ask for an hour to give a firm answer. Even after an all go from me, what will they say in the states? What will her new house mom say? After getting every one on board and deciding to take her, I want to go back and see if I can speak with her. He laughed at me. 

Naive. Maybe. Not speaking does not mean she cannot hear. Not speaking does not mean she is not capable. 

I wonder of the silence that greets me is a disability. I wonder if it is because her development was hindered. And sadly, I fear it is from the trauma that so many of these little girls face. I quickly remember the Keylas that didn't speak from shock. I pray that He intervenes. I hope we get to see a miracle take place. I wait for a change so drastic that we are not "their best", it will be so obvious that our home is where "He lives, He works!" Because when I look at how the pieces have come together, no man can take that glory.

Why Are You Crying?

It's been an emotional day for me. And several times I've had people look at me and ask what's wrong. I smile and tell them nothing bad. 

Then I got a text from a friend. He asked if it was a good cry or a bad cry. The truth is I didn't know how to respond.

At the feeding station today I was thanking the girls that helped out since Iliana and Karina were absent yesterday. One of them hugged me and didn't let go. "The only thing we want in return is Christmas baskets are we getting our Christmas baskets?", she asked. Unsure how to respond I looked at her and smiled. "I have faith and I'm believing."  What else could I say to her? 

I got in the car and I began to sob. If it were in my power each child would have a Christmas basket in the special present with their name on it and wrap. I feel brokenhearted. It isn't broken because I'm hurting and pain. Is broken with the passion and desire that I don't know what to do with. I don't know how to use it. I'm afraid to show it and share it. 

On days when everything I fought for and tried to make happen was stripped from my grip. On days when everything I'm working for seems to be working against me. And just when I started to lose hope. I see messages from followers sharing our story. I get messages from supporters sending in sponsorships. I get overwhelmed, as I am reminded, how everyone else cares too.

I wonder what it was like for Mary. She was bursting at the seams ready to give life. A life that she would one day watch be taken. Everything she poured herself into. She poured her life, her being, her everything into this child. I wonder what it was like for her as she watched Him get taken away as painfully as He entered. 

A burden that is carried, not by one, but my many. My heart still aches. 

It aches for what I fight for. It aches for everything we so desire to change and make different. I wonder if Mary knew that the life she fought to bring into the world, the very work she was judged for. I wonder...

Did the aching stop? Did it subside? Was she faced with the turmoil her entire life? Did she think she would die as she watched pieces of her very being have the air stripped from it? 

There is something so painfully similar to what has happened inside. And then Im reminded the feelings are shared. Im not alone. There is someone else there. Standing, fighting, caring by my side. I see it in your emails, your "shares", your texts, and your calls. I see you, I hear you, it gives me strength to move on. 

The Best Christmas Ever!

We have new neighbors. They have been here for a few months, but they are still new. They speak perfect English which I love, and they have a four year old that waits for Jayden to appear so she can play. 

My neighbors were deported after living in the states for more than 20 years. The wife is a citizen, but her husband is not. She got stuck joining him on this crazy adventure. 

Normally we talk about things they miss. A good church, real bathrooms, running water, electric that turns a light of when you flip the switch. Wait, electric that is reliable and only goes out when a big storm hits or something huge like that! A bit ago we began talking about Christmas. About the cost of living here, lack of income and an expense higher than what they had in California. The question of how they will celebrate the special day resonates in their heads. The yearning to have something special for an only child. The hope of being able to have a special celebration, party, or dinner. The fact is that all of this requires money. And just like most people they don't have any. 

Bad news for them, they were talking to me! Lol

I began to point out surrounding areas where the families are picking through trash to eat and survive. I reminded them of the day the garbage truck went by and the men working were eating the food found from within the garbage bags. I also shared the story of our feeding station children. 

The kids that eat at Las Brisas 1 and 2 are known to only have one hot meal a day because of our ministry. The kids are commonly know to have a dinner of a bag of chips that is so small it costs the equivalent of .05 cents. And no it isn't the same size as our lunch box chips found on the shelves in the states. These kids commonly pass through weekends without eating. This year Christmas is on a Wednesday. Our stations are closed this year on Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday (Christmas Eve), and Wednesday (Christmas Day). That means our kids will only be fed by us on three days that week. It is hard to find someone who will work for minimum wage that wants to work a holiday. 

I have kids that have been asking since October if they will be able to eat or if they will get one of the Christmas Baskets we try to pass out each year. We have 120 families that look for the baskets as a means of survival during the holidays. This year, it aches me to not know if they will eat. I think about how so many families will indulge. Turkey, ham, tamales, pork legs, desserts galore, finger foods, ponche... We eat until we bust. It pains me to know that even if I give what I have and we don't celebrate in my home there will still be babies rubbing their tummies. There will still be cries of little ones that can't figure out why their headhurts and belly aches. 

I am SO grateful for every blessing in my life. I am grateful that on the days when I didn't have milk for my son and I had already given away my last grain of rice that God has always sent someone with a blessing for our family. I am grateful that last year I was blessed by someone and we finally got a Christmas tree. I am grateful that every time I have been nervous and questioned God has provided. 

Right now, I am nervous. I am concerned. I am worried about the families that don't have the necessities, yet still believe that God is God. The families that rejoice when they have nothing. The children that have needs unmet and still believe that He is their provider. I want to make sure I am doing my part. I am making their need known. I am asking. I need $3,200 for these families to each receive a basket. 120 families.  If you will give $26.70 so a family can eat on Christmas will you please send a check to:

Open Door Ministries

P.O. Box 452831

Kissimmee, FL 34744

We are still dedicated to making sure 100% of your donation is sent to serve its designated purpose. Please write Las Brisas Christmas in the memo. 

Thank you for all of your love and support! Thank you for helping to make a difference with these children and families! Thank you for helping us make this Christmas the best one ever!