Futbol y Cupachinas

Others are fairly normal, are able to feed themselves and interact but have seizures 4, 5, 6 and 7 times a day and their families are unable to accommodate this family member.  We spend the day giving them pushes in their wheel chairs around the ward, simply touching them, talking to them, helping feed them and put them to bed for their afternoon siesta.
 
 
When we are ministering at any of our sites, I often think about a Life House song in which the writer says,
  
“How can I stand here with You and not be moved by you? Would You tell me how can it be any better than this?”
 
Since I have a relationship with the Lord and I know that He is with me everywhere I go, I was just taken aback by the fact that He was in this very hospital, His own heart breaking for his children who were born into this corrupt world, seeing His creation mangled by sin and still loving them so much as to provide doting care by the nurses and affection by numerous volunteers.  He loves His children and always seems to find away to outdo the enemy. Hallelujah! How could I not be moved by the Saviors’ love?
 

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Yesterday, we went to Chimaltenango to play futbol.
These kids are some of the sweetest we’ve met thus far. Chimaltenango is in the mountains of Guatemala.  These kids families live on $2 a day. Let me repeat that. These kids FAMILIES live on $2 a day.
 
How humbling.
 
I had two sisters come ask me if I knew of any work so that they could afford to go to school.  Of course, I knew of none. It was their end of the school year party that we had come to celebrate so we brought cakes and sodas as an end of the year treat. We prayed over the kids, their educations and their futures, that they would know and recognize the Lord’s love in any circumstance.
 

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Lastly, my team got to visit the Museo D Cupachinas. If you think of a cappuccino, you would be thinking correct. It is after a priest at this church in Antigua that our beloved coffee house beverage was born.  He always took milk in his coffee, an uncommon practice at the time.
 
I don’t geek out over church museums but this one has a unique story.  Many moons ago, when a young lady walked into this convent, she never left its walls, not even after her death.  Antigua is surrounded by volcanoes and is a place of great seismic activity.  Also, located in the city not far from the convent was a monastery. It was there the nuns and monks prayed and simplified their lives that they might be able to live undistracted lives for God.
 
Interestingly enough, the nuns would serve penance, (for those who aren’t Catholic like myself is a punishment of sorts) for their sins. Penance isn’t just a slap on the wrist. It is being chained to a wall and having water drip onto your head until you die. Turns out it’s a big deal. But what terrible sins could a nun commit that would require capital punishment?
 
 An earthquake caused a road in the city to collapse revealing an underground tunnel between the convent and the monastary.  More excavating revealed a large amount of small bones in the sewage systems under the convent.  The nuns and monks had been unfaithful to their vows and had been engaging in relationships.  The bones were of the nuns babies that had been discarded out of shame and the nuns paid for their sins with their lives. 
Amazing?! 
 
If only these women who obviously loved and feared the Lord had known that his blood covers a multitude of sins, including the mistakes that they were indeed guilty of.
 
It is a refreshing revelation that humanity is the same whether you are behind designatedly holy walls or not. If I could tell those monks and nuns one thing, I would remind them of a verse I’m sure they’ve probably read a hundred times.
 
Romans 8: 1-2, 33-39
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,  because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you^[a] free from the law of sin and death.
 
Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.  Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?  As it is written:
   “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
This is the message I carry as travel today.
 
You can pray today:

For my team mate Emma-she is needing funding to come before the next deadline and her support account has been sitting still 
 
For my teammates and I as we lead worship and lead the service at a church on Monday night-that others would know that we different by the love that we have for each other and the church.
 
 
For my family