Members of Apex Church traveled to Honduras to spend time working with a family of young girls who had lost both of their parents (father died in a car accident and the mother was murdered). The group built a 16X14 wood frame home and purchased items like beds, pots, pans and a table for the family. The highlight of the week was when the 2 younger sisters committed their lives to Christ!
| Another Heart Beating in My Chest
DAY ONE: A HOUSE FOR A CHILD-HEADED FAMILY
My wife and I felt strongly that James 1:27 specifically urges us to minister to widows and orphans. In response to that conviction we joined a team of ten from our Ohio church and partnered with Heart to Honduras, volunteering to build a home for a widow and her orphans in need. As it turned out there was no widow, only orphans in this family. The first day of work introduced us to Honduran heat and teamwork, which believe it or not, make pretty good bedfellows. The team alternated work, with half of the team building the house in La Colonia, and the other half helping students practice their English in a bilingual school in Santa Cruz. At the end of that first day we were tired and hot and so thankful for the river’s swimming hole! However, the next day our hearts were flipped upside down. DAY TWO: THE GOSPEL RECEIVED
On the way to the site the second day, two beautiful sisters, Alda (14) and Julia (12), jumped in the truck as we passed the school in Canchias. A couple of minutes later they instructed us to stop at a muddy, rough road. Bexi, the family’s 17-year-old matriarch was waiting for us there, holding her two small children. A couple of us held Darian (6 months) and Lizzi (18 months) as Bexi climbed into the cab. We learned that Bexi, Alda, and Julia’s father died eight years ago in a car accident. Three years before we encountered them, the girls woke to find a madman hacking their mother to death with a machete. After that terrible time, fourteen year old Bexi moved in with a man that promised to take care of them. He fathered her two children and abandoned them, leaving them with no support, no jobs, and no home. They did not smile when we met. Throughout our first day with the girls, it had been painfully obvious that they were emotionally broken. But, we loved them as much as we could through our labor, interactions, broken Spanish, and smiles. By the end of that second construction day, they were comfortable with us – less hesitant. The next morning they climbed on the truck and interacted easily; it was great to see them again.
As the sun rose higher in the sky, and with it the temperature, some of our team members ended up with the two youngergirls in the shade. My mother-in-law, Debbie, was with us and felt that she needed to share the gospel with these girls. She had lost her husband about one year ago and came to Honduras to share the hope that God had given her after her husband died. She knew that these girls needed that same hope. As they talked, the girls broke down in tears and related the loss of their mother and how hard it had been for them since her loss. They were finally able to cry and be loved after the living nightmare they had experienced. The team shared about the love of Jesus and how he wants to know us individually. Alda and Julia agreed that they wanted to know that Jesus. After praying with them, it seemed like they were different, perhaps a little lighter. DAY THREE: ALL SMILES! The next morning when we stopped at the muddy road to pick up the family, it seemed that they were different people. While I helped situate Bexi and the babies in the cab, I watched Alda and Julia jump into the truck, all smiles, and hug each person on the team. The rest of the week they laughed and smiled and chattered. They were totally changed people. Once we’d finished the house, we spent some time in prayer with this child-headed family, the local doctor who had brought this case to the attention of the ministry, and the pastor in this new village (La Colonia) in which the girls were being resettled from Canchias. We dedicated the little house to God and prayed blessings on the family. It was definitely a tearful separation, but as we drove away, we were blessed to behold a beautiful family standing with two great men, a beautiful new home, and a new Hope in life. HEARTS LEARNED THE LESSON We now have that image forever in our minds, but we will never change until we etch its lessons into our behavior. Those girls had no hope-actually the girls had nothing. We “sacrificed” our time and money to travel to Honduras because we understood that Christ called us to minister to orphans and widows. However, the lessons we learned on that little hill will never translate well to language, because it is our hearts which learned the lesson. Our minds caught a glimpse of what Christ’s desire truly looks like and our hearts ached as they dropped into beat with His. SEEKING ANOTHER HEART TO BEAT IN YOUR CHEST That beautiful heart of Christ that reached out to us also breaks daily for the “least of these,” the poor and the broken. Yet, we sit apathetically on the sidelines and hope that someone else does the legwork; that somehow, God will reach the starving children and exhausted mothers with a miracle. We justify sitting overfed in quaint mansions on leather couches by going to church on Sunday, as if that somehow feeds the hungry and clothes the naked. We continue to satiate our every whim by throwing money at it knowing that “someday, when I have extramoney, I’ll donate most of it to the poor.” That is not the kind of heart that changes lives; that is not the kind of heart that saved us from hell; that is not the heart of Christ. Something is wrong with our hearts. The easiest way to fix our hearts is to change our actions. · Read Scripture, pore over it until you cannot deny that Christ calls us to reach the poor and broken, and then do it. Your heart will have no choice but to follow suit. · Determine what you can give: finances, time, skills. As much as it might initially seem like a sacrifice, when you’re finished giving of yourself, you’ll find that you have much, much more to give than when you started. You’ll find that another heart is beating in your chest. |
