Life lessons from Job

"The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised." ~Job 1:21

Job put life into perspective in this verse. Basically he's saying: "Know what? Life is difficult sometimes and yeah I'm bummed that I lost my family and my belongings and my health, but I'm gonna praise God anyway so TAKE THAT SATAN!!"

In my last post I wrote about the women living at the apartments with me. The Lord gave them to us, and unfortunately this week,the Lord took them away.

Last Friday I went into Tegucigalpa for a weekend off. Rosario (a mentor of Betsy and Hae Young who has a ministry in Cortes) came to stay with the women. I came home on Sunday to find out that Margarita had run away on Friday.

Why?
I asked myself that too. Why run away? Why run away from a place that is providing you with 3 meals a day, a warm bed, an education, safety, and a new start at life? Why is the pull of the streets so strong? We don't know exactly why Margarita decided to run, but we think it has to do with fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of hoping for a new life.
The other women chased her down the highway in the rain until a staff member made them stop. Margarita came because of her free will and she was free to leave. Although we are so sad that she has returned to life on the streets, we realize that we cannot make her change her life...she has to want it.

But that's not all...
The story doesn't stop there.
On Tuesday, the call of the streets hit Maribel as well. She had been having a rough week and a couple of events on Sunday night and Tuesday morning set her off. She set her mind on leaving as well and nothing that we said could change her mind. Although Maribel's departure included some not-very-nice comments towards myself (she decided to take her frustration an anger out on me at the last minute), it's still hard to let her go. Maribel took Fernando with her (he'll be one on August 11th) and everyone has felt his loss. He was turning into a beautiful baby boy and now we aren't sure what will happen to the two of them

Now we are just two at the apartments: Sara and me. Betsy, Hae Young and I talked and we will remain at the apartments and wait for the arrival of new women. We are hoping and praying and trusting in God that all of this is in His perfect timing. We know that He has big plans for us and we are eagerly waiting the arrival of new women.

And while we wait, we continue to praise God for His faithfullness to us. He has promised us women here at the Villa and we know that He will follow through.

May the name of the Lord be praised!

We've Moved!

Picture: "cleaning day" in the apartments. They hadn't been lived in or cleaned for 3 months so I took some extra precautions to protect me from the spiders, scorpions and dirt that had moved in!

I need to get better at this blogging thing...or maybe I just need more hours in the day. Regardless, I have to share that I have moved!

It wasn't really a big move. Actually the process was pretty big, but I haven't moved too far. But let me rewind a bit.

The original idea behind the construction of the Villa was a center for women from the streets to come for a year and get away from the temptations and distractions of Tegucigalpa. However, God sent us a batch of kids...

and then BAM!
All of a sudden other missionaries and churches and acquantainces were telling us about women they knew that wanted to change their lives, get off the streets, and come live with us at the Villa!

When God moves, He moves big!

Betsy and Hae Young decided that the best idea would be to move Maribel and Sara (who were already at the Villa) down to the apartments to live with one of the Villa staff. And who is the lucky staff person...ME!

So it's been a whirl-wind of excitement around here.
Friday, July 2nd, Betsy gave us the news.
Saturday the 3rd the girls and I went down to expell spiders, scorpions and a whole lot of dirt from the apartments.
Sunday the 4th we moved beds
And Monday the 5th we moved: Sara, Maribel and Fernando and me.

Tuesday July 6th, Margarita came to join us at the apartments. She is 20 years old and after being involved in drugs and poor relationships, decided that she needed to change her life. She accepted Christ with a good friend of Betsy's who has an orphanage in Tegucigalpa and then decided to come to the Villa to enroll in our program.

How do I feel about all of this?
I am estatic! I feel so at peace and am so hopeful for the lives of these women. It's definitely been hard at times because I am the "authority figure" to women who are my age (24, 20, and 16) but the Lord has given me His authority and the women are respectful of me.

I spend most of my day with the women now which makes me miss the kids a little, but I think it helps me to love them even more!

So that's the big news so far. We've already had lots of excitement in the apartments (like the electric shower-head starting on fire and finding a snake...ew), but so far so good!

Fine, I'll Say It...I'm Sorry

Our first conversation went something like this:

Maribel~ So, you're not really a very strong Christian are you?
Me~ Wait, what? Why do you say that? You don't even know me?
Maribel~ I can just tell. (Long pause) Ok, Matthew 4:16, what does it say?
Me~ Um, I don't know.
Maribel~ You don't know what it is? I can't believe you don't know that verse. What about Psalm 3:11, do you know what that is?
Me~ No, sorry.

FRUSTRATION.

Honestly, one week in with Maribel and I felt like I was losing my mind. She loved to pepper me with bible verses or questions about the Bible to see if I knew the answer and to taunt me if I didn't. She immediately pinpointed my weakness in Spanish and used it to laugh at me. And she refused to let me help her with the baby, even if it meant having to carry him with her everywhere.

REJECTION

My response? Rejection. Fine, if Maribel is going to be mean to me, then I'll just ignore her. Forget that we just heard a sermon about loving our enemy...I mean, Pastor Evert wasn't really talking about situations like this was he? I'm sick of being treated like this, so I'll just ignore her until she starts to be nice to me.

Thank God for Elvia. She of course saw into my heart and suggested that I apologize. Wait, me...I didn't do anything wrong. Why do I have to apologize. Make her apologize first. Nope...I'm not doing it and you can't make me.

CONVICTION

My response to Elvia was a simple: "I don't have time to talk about this, I need to take a shower". Well, the shower is as good a place as any for the Spirit to convict. So here I am washing my hair, I am overcome by sympathy for this woman.

- She is 24-years-old and has 5 children (her first at age 14)
- Her four oldest children has been taken away from her and she lives in fear that someones is going to take away her youngest
- She has be involved in a number of failed relationship with men who told her that they "loved" her, but failed to act in that manner
- She is living in a new place with limited freedom and authorities telling her what to do
- And to top it all off, she has to live with some gringa who doesn't speak Spanish very well!

I don't know all of Maribel's history, but I do know that she is testing us to see if we really love her. To see how far she can push us until we reject her like so many have done before. She's fighting a constant battle with herself...should she leave, or should she stay. She's fighting a battle with us...if she's mean to us, if she hurts us enough, will we kick her out?

(Yes, all of this ran through my mind while I was in the shower...it was a long shower)

So, I decided. I have to apologize to her. And I have to love her. And I have to keep loving her, even if she is mean and nasty to me. Because God has done the same for me.

I went down to apologize to Mari and she beat me to it. She apologized for not trusting me with her son, for treating me badly, etc. And I apologized for rejecting her and for judging her.

And know what? It's better. She's not challenging me as much, she lets me watch Fernando so that she can take a nap or do laundry. We share our lives with each other and our struggles.

God made us to be relational people. It is not His intention for us to reject the love of others or to allow ourselves to feel rejected. And He delights in us, when we freely give our love to others.

I'm not saying things are perfect with Mari, but I do think those two little words "I'm sorry" have made all the difference in our relationship.