To Humbly Be Still

Honduras is humbling. There is a teenage boy here who is amazing and brilliant. He is fluent in Spanish, English, is learning French, and now is successfully writing in Braille. As I was leaving the orphanage yesterday another one of the volunteers, we stopped by to let the director know that a group of us were going to buy groceries. While the other volunteer was inside talking, I sat down with another volunteer at the picnic table where she was helping a boy write a letter to his sponsor. As I began talking with them, I was privileged to learn his story. Last December this boy began having problems with his vision, and since then has been increasingly losing his ability to see. A few weeks ago another volunteer taught him the Braille alphabet and how to use a Braille typewriter so he was writing a letter to explain his situation to his sponsor in America. He was able to translate his thoughts from Spanish to English and then from English to the Braille letters. One sentence that really amazed me that he wrote in Braille was “I know God has a plan for my life.” Wow. Here is a young man who is losing his ability to see, but still chooses to fix his eyes on Jesus. I would like to believe that I would have that strong of a faith, but at the same time I look back at the times I had MINOR setback in my life and realize how much I let it affect me and my relationship with God. I feel like the boy’s father in Mark 9 that begs Jesus to help him overcome his unbelief and lack of faith.

Lessons can be learned from any age group. The babies that I get to spend the majority of my day with are funny, cute, messy, and sometimes cranky. There is one who is such a funny baby. He is larger than the majority of the other babies and always wants to play with the smallest babies at the house, so ten to fifteen times a day I have to remind him to be “suave” (gentle) and “simpatico” (nice). When he plays with the other older babies at times they will begin to fuss with each other and sometimes they, like all nonverbal babies do, begin to hit. This particular baby believes that it is totally fine for him to hit or take a toy from another child, but as soon as that action is returned he is the first to run to me saying “pow pow” which means “spanking”.  I began to see how this cycle has mirrored my relationship with others, and in turn my relationship with God. I feel like my actions are always justifiable ( I am tired, that person should know better, I don’t have the time, I was just venting) but as soon as someone does something that hurts me I find myself running to God and demanding justice. I need to learn to be more forgiving to others and be more willing to extend the grace and patience towards them that I automatically (and presumptuously) assume others are willing to give to me.

I am so thankful to be here and continue to pray that God helps me to have a heart like His. I want to have eyes that see others as God sees them and that are open to see everything that He will teach me here. Please pray for the babies here because half of them have diarrhea.