What do you take for granted? What do you overlook? What do
you brush off as just another part of your life? These questions have been
swimming through my head as I spend more and more time in the community of Los
Pinos in Tegucigalpa. My heart is so bewildered by how truly impoverished so
many people’s lives are on a daily basis.
After a clear calling from the Lord, I knew I was meant to
work in the pueblo (neighborhood) of Los Pinos (the pines). I have never walked
in a place that was in need of that much love. I had always imagined what it
would be like to go in a “hopeless” part of the world but I never thought I
would actually step in one. The best way to describe what I could see is dirty,
barren and truly and frankly ominous. It is so obvious that these people are living in a way I
would never wish on my worst enemy.
Even with such dreary surroundings, my heart cannot help but
wonder how I can give to these people. Most of the kids wear a bare minimum
rotation of clothes (most have never owned jackets), eat maybe 1 small meal
every 2 days, usually living in one room with their entire family, digging through
the garbage to sell bottles for money, and all in all really having to battle
on the streets to stay alive. The surroundings create a feeling of abandonment
– it is so obviously written over all of their faces. What now am I supposed to
do with people who live like this?
As my head started to swim with different ideas, the solution
was sitting right in my hands: artwork. My mother put me in art class as soon
as I could hold my first crayon and I never really appreciated them until I was
asked to use them. I didn’t realize how captivating my cartoon faces and silly
looking animals could be to people who have never set foot in an art classroom.
I have been face painting, whiteboard drawing and doodling my fingers off but
my next step is clear: a mural.
The details of the mural will be posted in my next blog, but
I want to leave you with a few last thoughts:
What do you have that you don’t really
appreciate?
If you lost everything, what would you miss the most?
What should you be thanking God for every
day?
