Time, Talent, and Treasure

I just finished reading an incredible book I recommend to everyone – The Hole in My Gospel by Richard Stearns. There is so much I can say about this book because it is simply amazing and challenging.

One of the main questions the book wrestles with is, “What does God expect of us?” What a great question. It forces us to come face to face with our God. It makes us read afresh his words in scripture. And most importantly, it allows us a chance to dream about what God has in store for our lives.

God has saved us. He has chosen us. What does he expect of us now? One thought is the idea that God wants our time, talents, and treasures. These are very real ways we can respond to God. We can give time to his kingdom work. We can invest our lives and families to make sure those around us know the truth and love of God. We can also invest our unique talents to serve alongside God. I believe there are things which only we can do through the unique calling, personality and gifts God has given us. Finally, we can give God from much he has given. Aside from tithing, which is basically giving 10 percent of our income back to God, we can also sacrifice and give offerings. We can give to support God’s kingdom.

Time, talents and treasures.

Bringing Peace to the Paz Family

A year ago Washington Cathedral raised money to “finish” the nursery – the structure was up, but we still needed interior elements such as flooring, windows, etc. For a year the room was used miscellaneously, as we had no money to staff the nursery. Finally, our dream of caring for babies in soft, comfortable beds instead of cardboard boxes in the dump came into fruition thanks to some help from Orphan Outreach and Street Kids Direct.

Last week we checked in our first two babies: a brother and sister of a family involved with AFE. The “Paz” family is deeply entrenched in garbage dump life. Both parents work in the garbage; so does each of their children when they leave AFE’s doors: except for these two new inductees to the nursery.

Lilobeth is two years old and though she hasn’t “worked” in the dump, she has spent all of her life there, beside her mother, learning the trade by observation. She bears the ramifications of this life. Her toddler skin is already leathery from overexpose to the sun, and her hair looks like dirty straw pulled into a pony tail. But now is in AFE’s nursery during the day, lovingly cared for by Johanna, who has young children of her own.

Daniel, her brother, is three months old, and the nursery opened at an opportune time for him. His mother took a “maternity leave” of three months when he was born, and was about to go back to work in the dump when she instead decided to put he and Lilobeth in the nursery. Daniel’s skin has a healthy glow, and his smile is easy. He is the eighth child of the “Paz” family and the first to grow up outside of the dump. “Paz” means peace. Daniel will be the first to crawl on tiled floors, sleep in clean blankets…with the sound of twinkling mobile instead of garbage trucks.

Thank you to all of those who helped bring peace to the children of the Paz family. Our prayer is that little Daniel will be the first in the Paz family to never know the garbage dump. The cycle of working in the garbage dump ends with Daniel.

New Church Building

On Saturday October 25, Amor y Vida inaugurated our new church building. We have officially moved out of the community center and into our own building. We had a huge celebration with many special guests and the whole church. We have so many people to thank including Orphan Outreach, ACEMH, and Washington Cathedral who have been involved in various ways.

The construction team that funded most of the building is from Heritage Family Church located in Fort Worth, Texas. They do not have their own building yet but meet in a school. They were in the middle of a building campaign for their own church when the pastor visited our project in Honduras. On his return to the church, he announced that they would begin construction on a new building. The church began applauding thinking that the building was for them. Yet the pastor told them the new building was going to be about 2500 miles south. He explained our project and vision and the church was in agreement to build our church first. It was a tremendous sacrifice and one we do not take lightly.

Spiritual formation is at the center of the transformation process. We believe that unless God is in the center of the process, it will inevitable fail. Our church is fusing two different communities together. It has not been easy but God has worked miracles which are evident on the first visit to our church. We serve families connected to the garbage dump which most of society has ostracized. But God is doing a work in their lives that is impacting the whole garbage dump community. We have started ‘small´ groups in three different locations but they have all grown to over 50. The new building was a definite need as we were standing room only in our old location.

Please pray for our church, our pastors, leaders, and members.

Spiritual Formation

We strongly believe that at the core of all our students is a spiritual being. Unless they are connected intimately with Jesus, discovering His love and purpose for their lives, no other transformation is enough. They will be restless until they find rest in Him.

“None but God can satisfy the longings of an immortal soul; that as the heart was made for Him, so He only can fill it.”
Richard Chenevix Trench

By no means are we minimizing or not making social justice a priority. We are simply stating that social justice without Jesus is not enough. We know it is hard for a starving child to hear “Jesus loves you” so we feed and with both our action and our words we declare, “Jesus loves you.” We apply this principle to all the areas of their lives where there is disintegration and devastation.

In order to develop followers of Jesus among the people in the garbage dump, we are initiating a new strategy the first week of October for all the students 12 and up. In conjunction with Amor y Vida, we are beginning a ‘church plant’ at AFE with this age group. We have a 3 pronged approach

1 – Weekly meetings where we discuss any of the topics the students deem relevant to their lives. We want to teach our kids how to be a Christian in the everyday life including dating, working, family life, friends, pop culture, etc.

2 – We are dividing up are kids into small accountability groups called ISI – Iron Sharpens Iron. These groups will be following the structure of Life Transformation Groups where the group meets weekly and discuss a series of accountability questions whose goal is to develop deep disciples.

3 – Finally, we have assigned a mentor over all the students whose responsibility will be to have bi-monthly one on ones. These meeting will serve to simply listen to the student about their lives, problems, weaknesses, strengths, dreams, and ambitions. Anything is free game. Our jobs will be to help the students see Jesus in their own lives.

We are beyond excited about our strategy for the spiritual formation of our students. We don’t doubt these are the future leaders of Honduras who will start their own projects, churches, and businesses that will shine a light of God’s love in Honduras. We are also painfully aware of our inadequacy to attempt this great endeavor. We are utterly dependant on God. Please pray that God might be glorified through this new step.

A Transformation of the Heart - By Kelly Glenn

Can you remember the last thing that you worried about? Are you worried about anything right now?

I’ve never been a big worrier in life. When I face stress or struggles, I’ve gotten really good at relying on God to take care of them. So far, that’s worked well for me. But recently, I’ve had a number of experiences and conversations that have shaken up ideas about God that I’d had since I was a child, and made me wonder if maybe reading the Bible from inside a safe, suburban home growing up had caused me to misunderstand a few things. Let me explain.

When I wanted to help the poor, I would go to feed the homeless, but I would make it all about me. I would go to bed feeling good about having volunteered and thinking about how much God would bless me for it. I would not lose sleep worrying about where the homeless people I had met would lay their heads that night.

Why was I so sure that God would take care of my every want, need, or desire, when I didn’t give a thought to how he took care of my homeless neighbors across town?

Somehow, I grew more comfortable with the image of God as one who would bless me for doing good works than one who desperately cared about the poor and wants us to do the same.

When I got into my first choice college, when I could afford to go to physical therapy for my knee because we had health insurance, I assumed it was God’s blessings that had allowed me do those things, as if he was rewarding me for being a faithful follower to Him. There’s just one thing wrong with this view: the unstated assumption. The assumption was that those who hadn’t been blessed like I was must not have deserved it. Most people would never admit this out loud, but it seems that the way we live confirms that we think we are more deserving than other “less fortunate” people.

It is true that God cares for me, but what about the refugees of Darfur, the starving in Haiti, or the struggling inner city student in Detroit? I have to think that God has an even greater hand of protection over them, yet their struggles continue. Does this mean that God is taking better care of me than of them? I beg to differ. Maybe I have been taking too much for granted, writing it off as God blessing me for being such a great person, when really it’s only because I’ve been fortunate enough to be born on the right side of certain political, economic, and social structures. I don’t deserve that, it’s just the way it’s happened. So we must realize that God wants to bless the struggling, oppressed people of the world as much as he wants to bless us, and if something is prohibiting them from drinking safe water or working under decent conditions, it’s probably because of our greed, even unknowingly.

I fear that we have become very complacent as a culture. We justify our comfortable lifestyles unnecessary spending by quoting verses that say that God loves us and wants the best for us. But chances are, those verses were not written to the “salaried and caloried” part of the world, as one writer put it, but to people who were poor, abused, and oppressed. It is true that I work hard and God wants me to take time for myself. But how much harder do the hundreds of scavengers in the dump work every day, looking for food? Why did I always put my needs before theirs?

It makes me sad when I realize that even though I do make a point of giving to the less fortunate, I still live at a level that is above 95% of the world. I am not, as Michael Miller put it, “giving until it hurts.” As the saying goes, there is enough for everyone’s need, but not for everyone’s greed. And I cannot possibly justify my greedy behavior by saying that God loves me, when there are others out there hurting who God loves just as much. It is only through reading the Bible from their perspective- on the fringes of society- that we will ever begin to wrap our mind around how much God loves and cares for the poor and hurting of the world. Let us strive to understand that, to live it out, and to never forget it.

Preventative Education

As we seek transformation, we see the importance of prevention in this process. Yet we think there must be more than prevention. In the community the AFE kids run in, a downward spiral exists, luring and enticing all of the students into its clutches. It is like a black hole whose center pulls and pulls until all hope evaporates. Most of the people have been in this situation for several generations. It seems they are destined to stay in this context of oppression and poverty. Despite all of their efforts to escape, most have been unsuccessful.

John 1:5 – The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

Once God starts moving and shining his light, the end of darkness is inevitable. That is the ultimate reality of the garbage dump and the surrounding communities. God is moving and people are taking notice.

Part of the darkness that is being snuffed out is drugs and alcohol. Today we had a special group of police officers come to teach about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. It was a great experience for our children.

However, preventive education is not enough. How many students in your fifth grade class tried drugs and alcohol after graduating from the “DARE” program? That is why Jesus aims at the heart, and we aim at the heart in our work at AFE. Most of the students attend church together faithfully on Sundays, and have great mentors in their teachers who look at their jobs as ministry.

The other day kids ran after Rey, quoting back his message at church: “Jesus is the only drink that can satisfy.” Yes, we work in preventive education here, but deeper than that, we work at heart transplants.

Miracles

The unbelievable has happened during the month we were gone. Two young boys from the garbage dump have started at AFE. This is a huge deal. One is named Christian and the other Sergio David. Both of them work full time in the garbage dump. We had been working with Christian every day trying to convince him to come. We tried everything short of bribery. But for some reason, we could not get through. This is the case with so many of the kids in the garbage dump (see note below). We left a month ago to the states. When we returned Jeony had great news for us. He told us Christian had just showed up at the school and asked if he could start. They were shocked but of course they let him in, placing him in first grade although he is 13. Within a couple days they moved him up to second grade and then again to third grade because he is so smart. Next week he will be in fourth grade. He has not missed one day. He has done all of his homework. And he is attending the church. I (Rey) was almost in tears when Jeony told me because this story illustrates what I strongly believe. God is at work. We plant the seeds, water the plant, and then wait. That’s all we can do. Nothing else. God brings the growth. God makes the plant grow. And God worked a miracle in Christian’s life. We are going to get right back to planting seeds in the garbage dump because we know God is going to make more plants grow.

Sergio David was with us for a couple years. He does not have parents and lives with his Aunt. His Aunt has forbidden him to come to school. So he has been working full time for the past 3 months. The good news is that Sergio David is coming to the school now because he has moved away from his Aunt and is living with another Uncle who allows him to come. His brother and sister, Ariel and Brenda, want to come to school but the aunt still will not let them come. Please pray that she will change her mind when we meet with her.


One more Note
It’s interesting to be on this side of the situation. From this perspective, it makes no sense why some kids would choose to work in garbage all day when they could come to our school, get an education, get a free meal, play with all their friends, and have a chance to get away from that lifestyle. This is a no brainer. Yet hundreds of kids have chosen to work in garbage. As I, Rey, was in the garbage dump yesterday, I was heart broken because there are still so many kids working in garbage. Why won’t they just come? I can only bring the invitation but I can not force them. That’s when I realize this is the same issue God is dealing with. He is offering us a way out of the garbage of our lives. He is offering us an abundant life, joy, hope, excitement, adventure, love and so much more. But how many times I have chosen to say no to God, and stayed in the garbage. How many people continue to say no?