Relentless Love
God’s love is…selfless, forgiving, pure, wide, perfect, fatherly, unfailing, patient, deep, sacrafice, protecting, romancing, passionate, kind, relentless.
Henry is an eighteen year old Honduran who has lived on the street most of his life assulting people for money and everyday needs. He now lives on a 125,000 acre farm outside of Tegucigalpa, is clean from smoking, has returned to school, loves the Lord, and was recently baptized last Friday. Christopher is a sixteen year old teenage boy who has been addicted to paint thinner for more than two years. Him and his brothers are left daily in the house to fend for themselves sometimes not eating for two or three days at a time. Paint thinner numbs the pain of life and being hungry, but only satisfies for a while until it wears off. A couple of weeks ago Christopher was found buried under a giant pile of trash outside his home. He was unconscious, had dried blood on his face, and had to be shaken for about an hour to return to a state of normalcy. He now has recently made the decision to gain victory in life against his addiction to thinner, he has moved to the farm, has been clean for a week, is being discipled, and is learning everyday trades. Roni is eighteen, he has been using thinner daily for a number of years and has a six month old daughter that he never sees. His father is an alcoholic that just got relased from jail and his mom works on the steets. He has been spending his days on the farm helping out, he is learning more about God, and is starting to understand responsiblity and discipline. All of these are lives that are being changed because of the relentless love of our heavenly father. God’s love never gives up, never stops pursing, never backs down when the going gets tough. It waits patiently with open arms until we are willing to make the choice to change and allow him to work his good and perfect will through us and in us.
This month me and my new team ( Liliana Orazco, Katie Eason, Nancy Madsen, William Treat, and Donald Hamilton), have been living on an absolutely breathtaking farm outside of Tegucigalpa, Honduras building relationships with these guys. There is such simplicity in living life alongside them and investing in who God has made them to be. Through playing soccer, cooking together, painting signs, listening to music, washing dishes or wherever our day takes us we have learned to live and walk out the father’s love. It has been an absolute blessing to work alongside our ministry contact here Tony Deien and his wife. For years now Tony has been working with these boys and many more just like them sharing the love of Jesus through relentless love. Even though he has been working with some of them for over two years to help them break the bonds of addiction he never gives up. He has love like the father’s and he pursues them no matter how they act, how they treat him, or how many times they make mistakes. He sees these boys where they are in this moment and loves them, and he also believes in them and sees where they can be through having a relationship with the Lord. Even though many have told him he was merely wasting his time, his story is a testimony to the faithfulness of our father and is a reflection of his relentless love.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no records of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13: 1-8, 13
