a picture
I'm only starting to comprehend that a week and a half from now, I'll be in the Dominican Republic again. Saying that I'm helping to lead two student mission trips, is truthful but might not conjure up the complete picture in your mind.You see, after going nine summers in a row, it's become more like visiting family. More like a homecoming. From Maria the neighborhood grandma, who runs from her house waiving and still to this day thinks we have the same name, wants to marry me off, and heckles me for not visiting more often and pouts when I have to leave (as all good grandmothers do) ...
To Johnny who literally beams, unable to stop smiling and proudly shows us around the orphanage looking for ways to help by carrying things or pulling laundry off the line...
To Pastor Lukeman faithfully teaching God's Word and seeing the fruit manifested in healing families, fathers taking responsibility, hearts turning to Life Himself...
To Santa, pronounced with the "ant" sound of "want" but who nevertheless is the bearer of many sweet gifts and a truly joyful heart. She and her husband have a home filled with children: biological, adopted, and his younger sister. In the picture she holds other friends' baby.
With all these and more, there is a bond of love that grows quite deep. Past language, culture and economic differences. Our hearts are knit together.And yet each relationship presents a new picture of the ache and brokenness of this world.Maria, with a cigarette dangling from her fingers, seems mostly concerned with the latest neighborhood gossip. She's drawn to the light within us that is Christ Himself, but her mouth doesn't proclaim Him...yet.Johnny's body consumed by joy is also wracked with the affects of a handicap, leaving him speechless and sometimes weary to exhaustion with fighting his own body's convulsions.Pastor Lukeman shepherds two congregations and a growing family. A beautiful, loving, but weary wife by his side. Countless Haitian refugees in the neighborhoods of his churches, seemingly trapped in cycles of defeat with no work and generations of children being born to parents merely children themselves and often not committed to each other.Santa, precious dear soul who along with her husband might go hungry so their children can eat...yet we can only intervene to a certain extent to help their family without further ostracizing them from their neighbors and friends. They already get flack for having "white" and "rich" friends. There's an understandable hardness in the hearts of many there. When saying goodbye to her last year, I totally lost it. Not because I'm sorry for her. But I've seen her pray. Pouring her heart out to her perfect heavenly Father in heaven, falling to her knees in tears only to rise hands held high, her face radiating joy again. I long to bear her burdens with her, to hold her arms up when she's weary. Sometimes I just don't know how...and feel helpless.It's then I have to cling to my Help. Knowing Christ alone is their Help, my Help...our Hope. Hope for the trivial, weak, weary, hungry. And I'm in just as desperate need as those I love so dearly there.