After a week and a half into this months ministry, I feel ready and capable to process and explain what I’ve been up to. My team and I have been working with Eternal Family Project. To put it simply, there is an angel of a woman who relocated from the states to Honduras to take in girls who don’t have the option of going back to their former family. She clothes them, feeds them, schools them–she completely raises them and loves them from head to toe. She is mom. They are her daughters. They are each other’s sisters. Currently, she has 22 daughters living under her roof. They range from ages 2-20. Our roles has been working at the school she’s built. Some of us teach music, some of us watch the babies, some of us teach art. My job has been to take the girls through group counseling. The Lord has been SO GOOD in allowing us to serve through our passions. I’m in constant amazement that God has called me to wake up every morning and talk to these girls, allow them to be heard, and walk with them through hard places. Inside Out has been so helpful in talking about feelings. For the little ones, we draw the character they are feeling. Sometimes it’s disgust, sometimes it’s joy, but it’s always raw and so good. A few days ago, one of the 7 year olds was crying and felt visually misunderstood. I sat at a distance and softly asked her, “What Inside Out character are you feeling right now”
“I’m feeling Inside Out sad.” She replied through defeated tears. Through that, she was able to communicate in our own language. She came out of hiding and allowed herself to be held. She took the Journey of a Warrior. She, a very young girl, braved through the fear and social unacceptability of sadness, and allowed herself to feel the feels and express the feels, and most importantly, be held in love.
These girls are so beautiful and have broken pieces. Just like me. I used to have a massive problem with the word ‘broken’. Only recently have I viewed the word with new eyes. I used to believe broken was ugly and needed to be hidden with the world, but that is so wrong. The broken are heroic.
One day, I was in my tech theatre class and we were talking about light fixtures. At one point, my professor pulled out a slate of broken glass that had been glued back together. Everyone, to my confusion, look at it with awestruck and wide eyes. “Why would anyone want to look at broken glass” I thought. And then I was led to understanding. When glass breaks, some people get scared they’ll get hurt just by being near sharp edges. Usually, it’s only one, maybe two people, helping clean up the broken pieces. Once they’re picked up with careful and gentle hands, they can be made into something beautiful. Something that shines and sparkles in different directions and differently than it’s original creation. Then I thought, “How do I glue these pieces back together?” With careful, gentle, and loving hands.
Beautifully broken.
Which leads me to the word Kintsugi. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something of disguise.
Beautifully broken.
These girls don’t hide their pain. They show it. They feel it as fully as they feel the joy that comes from jumping as high as possible on a trampoline, or the disgust they feel when vegetables sneak in their pasta, or the anger they feel when the sisters argue. Thanks Inside Out. Thanks Death Cab.
