This month team Alvah is serving Manos Unidas en Cristo, a ministry reaching out to the homeless and marginalized of San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
 |
| Team Alvah at Manos Unidas en Cristo ministry |
Before this month I’d never met a prostitute or someone addicted to cocaine. My life has been filled with light, blessing and hope. The selfless, genuine love of Jesus Christ has been shown to me by many people. So this month my subconscious, preconceived notion of what these chains looked like on people has been blown out of the water by reality. The people who come to the ministry center live in a darkness and a desperation that I can’t relate to. This weighty ugliness, the lowest kind of brokenness, left me feeling helpless. What can I do in the face of perpetuating oppression? Early in the month, attempting to cope with all my emotion and the raw hatred boiling in me for what I saw, I focused inwardly and began to shut down. But breakthroughs happened this month when I daily asked for a broken heart.
Help me God, in all my privilege, to identify with these women. With the men too, Lord. Keep breaking my heart because even though it may seem easier to not feel anything at all, I don’t ever want to become desensitized to this.
The hope of the Gospel is as game changer. Jesus pursues relentlessly. Jesus saves. Jesus frees. Jesus loves and walks in relationship with us. There is power in the Gospel to restore all parts of a life; economic perspective, family dynamics, identity, joy, purpose and hope. I have grown in faith and exercised it this month, believing that the hope inside of me really does bring hope to the hopeless even just by my presence. When Spanish fails me, God never fails to pursue.
Our team prepared and performed the Everything drama last Friday at a women’s event at the center. The song by Lifehouse played in Spanish in the background as we wordlessly demonstrated the Gospel to a room of captivated Honduran women. Afterward we took a photo at the center with several of the people who helped put on the women’s event.
 |
| Some of the amazing and faithful people we’ve worked alongside this month |
Needless to say, this month has been a battle. Several times this month I’ve missed the familiar so bad it’s like a stabbing pain in my heart. I’ve also been reminded often of my personal deep-seated fear of failure. When I want to give up for fear that I’ll fail, I return to the reason I dared to venture out in the first place. It was for love of the Lord that I came, longing to know Him better. In several of these times of fear and failure, I searched the Bible and came across three Psalms that lifted me:
“Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice…Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me…Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.” Psalm 51:8,10,12
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Psalm 51:17
“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names. Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.” Psalm 147:3-5
Throughout the Race I’ve seen God faithfully working in my heart and my desires, leading me to move and act. On Monday at the ministry center I felt Him give me love that wasn’t my own for a little boy I was coloring with. I know that He’s working all the time but often I don’t see it. I want to continue to grow in being able to recognize His work in me, around me and through me.
This month I’ve also grown in worship, both in English and in Spanish. I’ve continued practicing the guitar, and at times have been a part of leading worship at church or at the ministry center. Here is a photo not of leading worship but simply playing a song during a meal at the center:
 |
| Playing “10,000 Reasons” with Meghan and Ashley |
More to come later from this month in Honduras. Thank you for your love and support!
