Becoming less

June 11 2015

Antoine de Saint Exupery once wrote: “one ne voit bien que avec le Coeur, l’essentielle est invisible pour les yeux.” It translates “one sees well only with the heart, the essential is invisible to the eyes,” and meaning found in this week of work and play. They come desperate and hopeful seeking care for their mortal bodies and finding profound joy in the life everlasting. And today bus loads of children tread the brown packed earth of the House of Hope compound. A ministry called One by One, which seeks to restore the innocence of youth to the future of Nicaragua, brought their children to us. The air rang with laughter and joy as the children residing at House of Hope and the ones just visiting played carefree beneath the sweltering Nicaraguan sun. For today, and by the grace of God for many days to come, these children, who have been exposed to atrocities most of us only imagine, played with wild abandon. If only us adults would run with the same abandon to the arms of our Loving Father and thereby come as little children seeking the kingdom of heaven. Would not this world be a different place?

I have purposefully refrained from spitting statistics about this country in which we are guests for 48 more hours, but these I could not resist: approximately 5.7 million people live in Nicaragua and almost half are children, most of which do not finish grade school. They suffer child labor, abuse, and trafficking as Nicaragua remains a major player in human trafficking to the United States, Europe and Canada. “At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’ He called a little child, whom he placed among them. And He said: ‘truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes a humble place- becoming like this child – is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” Matthew 18:1- 5.

This skies opened up this evening and rain pounds the tin roofs above and brick walk ways below; drowning out our voices with relentless deafening sheets of water. Undeterred by the dramatic weather, we celebrated the birthday of one of our beautiful teammates – truly a diamond in the rough. We are blessed to have her along on this jungle journey.

I leave you with Romans 5:1-5 this evening: “Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character, and character, hope and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

Through the trials and triumphs this week, with one more day left, it has been a pleasure to be about God’s business (as one team member put it); we continue to stand in the gap. John writes in 3:30 “He must become greater; I must become less.”