Multiplication.
Something I kinda suck at. Something God is pretty amazing at.
A few weeks ago I had the privilege of traveling to Guatemala with a team of about 30 people from my church. In that week, I saw God multiply things in more ways than I ever imagined possible. I watched as the goal we were struggling to reach of 120 pairs of shoes for Casa Bernabe Orphanage multiplied. As we unloaded suitcases full of shoes, that 120 turned into 463 pairs of shoes. A couple days later my team went to a village near the orphanage we were staying at called Jocotillo. The people of Jocotillo live extremely impoverished lives. Houses of tin (or what most Americans would consider shacks) line the roads side by side. Stray dogs and chickens run rampid. The men- the ones who aren’t completely absent to their families- work in the pineapple fields. A majority of the girls in the village are pregnant, some as young as ten and eleven years old. The amount of sexual abuse and rape makes me sick, but this is a normal thing that happens there that not much can be done about- my dream is that this can soon change.
It is hard for people to imagine being joyous in a community like this, but our day in Jocotillo was unbelievably good. We fed the community with 600 hot dogs, and just when we thought there wouldn’t be enough for everyone, the line seemed to shorten. The last person in line got the last hot dog.
It gets better.
We had bags of food, full of corn, flour, oil, and other basic necessities that would feed a family for about a couple weeks each. The line got long, people were swarming the shaggy schoolbus we were handing bags off the back of. There was no way, we thought, that we had enough bags to give to all these people. It began to get discouraging when a guy from our team counted and said we only had 30 bags left- the line was still lingering down the street. But, like I said: GOD MULTIPLIES. And he sure as heck did. The last person in line got the last bag. It was a miracle. 5 loaves and 2 fish. Boom.
One last thing I want to share with you is about the trees our bus passed on the way to the village. Fiery red blossoms made this enormous patch of trees stick out like a sore thumb against the brown mountains. They were beautiful, you couldn’t miss them. Those fiery red trees- they demand to be seen. God whispered this to me as we passed them and I couldn’t stop staring: The children of Guatemala are like those trees. They demand to be seen. Not by force, but by beauty and fervor alone. God sees them and he loves them. He admires them. Can’t take his eyes off of them. Oh how he adores them! When God told me that those children were like the trees, I was humbled. Of course, God loves me just as well. But I believe there is a special place in His heart for children such as these. “A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows” is our God.
We are not called to be the “biggest” and “best” Christian, gloating a religion with pride. We are called to be like the children. Matthew 18:1-5. The children’s hearts are the hearts we need to strive to obtain. To humble oneself like a child is to have great faith in the Lord. We should never have the mindset that that we are better, more special, or more loved than a child. The children teach us what the world deprives us of as we grow. We’re called to forgive like they forgive, love like they love, and believe like they believe. I believe if we do this, God will multiply our fruitfulness and we will be more able to see and more ready to receive the Kingdom of God.
Much love,
Abigail
