Tegucigalpa, Honduras
I spent two weeks after initially meeting with Carmen thinking over all that she had shared. It impacted me greatly.
The squad met Carmen in Nicaragua. When we told her our next country was Honduras, she became excited. It turns out that she has dedicated a lot of time to an orphanage only two kilometers down the mountain from Zion's Gate where we were staying for the month. She was happy to arrange a meeting and a tour of the orphanage.
Carmen started out with garbage dump ministry in Nicaragua, but was soon invited to do the same ministry in Honduras. Through contacts there she found the orphanage and has been pouring time, money, and love into the girls there ever since.
Carmen shared that one of the pastors in Honduras asked her how she could devote so much time and energy to just 30 girls when she could possibly reach so many more through the church. She answered, "Working deep with 30 girls is better than superficially with 300. Go the deepest and the furthest as you can." Carmen looks at the girls in the orphanage and thinks, "I want to take this life and change it."
Carmen approaches life with the girls as a mother would and tears fell from her eyes as she shared how she just wants the best for these girls. Although many of them can quote scripture and pray beautiful prayers, but Carmen worries that much of it is for show and not a truth that they carry in their hearts. They still see themselves as orphans, act like orphans and don't understand that the God of all creation has called them daughters.
For this reason, Carmen travels twice a month from Nicaragua to Honduras to be with the girls and shower love on them. When she is not with the girls she works at her church in Honduras and has a small selling business on the side. Since I know that Carmen does not actively raise support, I asked where the money for all this travel comes from. She answered,
"When you care, you have the money."
God has provided in miraculous ways for Carmen, yet she has not stopped asking. She gives and gives all that she has because she wants these girls to live the best life possible, knowing who they are as daughters of the King.
Ephesians 1:3-5 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Christ Jesus. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
Angie, Carmen, and I
