When Light Breaks Through

“Ugh. Firnsdhip. (Yes. Apparently that is how you type friendship after an EXHAUSTING week of preparing mentally for a conversation with a friend that you just don’t see eye to eye with. But you want to. But you just can’t.) 

I’ve been prepping all day to say it well. To cover it with grace and mercy. But in that moment it comes out all raw and uneven and not at all like I wanted. 

And now I feel emotionally like one might feel physically after a marathon.

And still nothing is resolved. It’s all hard and messy and hard to explain. And then those raw emotions, unfiltered, come out in a way that shadows over the truth.” 

That was a journal entry after a conversation gone awry a few months ago as I sat slumped over my computer, exhausted. 

Sadly it was only downhill from there. In fact, the whole thing spiraled out of control leading to the unresolved and somewhat confusing end to a friendship. 

And I suppose the enemy was pleased since his goal is destruction and death.

I learned a lot about myself and about God’s character in the weeks leading up to that and the weeks following. But the loss was still very real.  

So, as I sat on the cool concrete floor next to a dear friend last week while she was wrestling with the aftermath of a broken relationship, I determined to do one thing and to do it well: listen. I wanted to hear her story and what she felt. Right or wrong, I was there to hear and understand. By God's grace this story would end differently.

I was privy to the other side of the story from our mutual friend with whom she had the conflict. Now I wanted to see her angle. Where was the light not getting into the confusing shadows of her experience? Where had this whole thing gone wrong?

Because every story has multiple angles, not just two sides.

The more she talked and the harder I listened, the more I understood.

Turns out it was the same trio at play here that had wound its way into my situation a few months prior. 

Miscommunication. Misunderstanding. Assumptions. 

The ultimate trifecta to destroy all things relationship. 

As she shared, I prayed and asked for wisdom. When the time came, I gently nudged her towards truth and asked permission to share her side with our mutual friend, the other side of the conflict. 

“No,” she said. “Don’t tell her. It will only be more confusing. It’s over now. Everything is fine.”

Ah. There it was. The lie. The ultimate lie was that if the truth came out then there would be confusion. That it should just be swept under the rug and everyone would move on just fine.

But the truth sets us free (John 8.32). Truth makes a way for forgiveness and that is when light breaks in and dispels the darkness. It is in the silence that the confusion takes root, where the truth is buried, and the darkness prevails. 

I assured her I would not tell her story. Instead we would sit down, the three of us, and we would create a space to hear and be heard. Only then could freedom be found and relationship be restored. She agreed to this and I assured her I would be back. 

The next morning, as the Amazon sun peeked through the cotton clouds that promised rain for the afternoon, I walked back to her house with the other friend. I prayed for wisdom and healing as we walked into her home. 

We found her fiddling with the stereo system, trying to get a station to come in clearly, to no avail. She welcomed us in, though not making eye contact as we settled in on the sofas. With one friend directly across from me and her by my side, I took a deep breath. 

There was part of me that held on to the faith that understanding was possible. That when we sit down, face to face, with pure and humble hearts, there can in fact be restoration. Maybe it will take time take. Maybe it will hurt. But it can happen. 

The other part of me doubted after what I have experienced. We humans are messy. 

“Jesus, lead us.”

I began the conversation by reminding us all that we were there to hear. To listen and understand. “Quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger...” James tells us. A lesson hard learned.

As the discussion progressed, I saw it happening. Slowly but surely (and with some nudging still), the truth began to surface as the stories began to collide. 

This was understood one way, when it was intended that way. 

This was communicated that way, but it actually meant this. 

This was assumed based off of one thing, but that was never true to begin with. 

Light breaking through to reveal the truth that had been buried. 

As the light grew brighter, the darkness fled. It all culminated in tears, hugs, apologies, and forgiveness. There was finally understanding to a situation that had lasted well over a month now. One that had threatened to ruin a friendship of many years and one that very well would have if there had not been space to listen, humility to receive. 

I felt humbled and honored to have been witness to this moment of restoration. It took a lot of self-control, in fact, for me not to fist pump the air and shout, “See! I KNEW it! I knew that it could happen. It wasn’t just in my mind. Relationships CAN be made whole again!” Because how many times has the opposite been true? I’ve seen it in my extended family. I’ve witnessed it in my own relationships and in those of close friends.

Miscommunication. Misunderstanding. Assumptions. 

A heaviness that weighs us down. 

Oh, but God is faithful. He makes a path to restoration and it is never too late. This was proof.

I took the opportunity to read 1 Corinthians 13. 4-8 aloud. It is written across the walls of Grace House where these ladies spend their days and it has echoed in my mind ever since my own conflict a few months back. 

We need frequent reminders as we humans are forgetful. 

I read it slowly, letting it seep into our hearts.

“Love is patient, love is kind.

Love does not envy,

is not boastful, is not conceited, 

does not act improperly, 

is not selfish, is not provoked,

and does not keep a record of wrongs.....”

That last line. I get hung up there. “Does not keep a record of wrongs.” As I am reading this list of love’s attributes, this one stands out to me. How often do we say with our mouths we forgive someone, but our hearts say otherwise when we keep record? 

Praise God, He keeps no record!

And that was where this friend was struggling. She couldn’t understand the forgiveness and the love that she was feeling in that moment, the very things that were causing the tears to flow. She had never experienced it and she could not believe it was true. 

But it is true. Love lets it go, but even more than that, keeps no record. There is not a storage room full of dusty old books where all of our “wrongs committed” are written down to be used against us at a later date. It is as though it never happened. 

“Love finds no joy in unrighteousness 

but rejoices in truth. 

It bears ALL things, 

believes ALL things, 

hopes ALL things, 

endures ALL things. 

Love never ends.” 

The day before this conversation took place, we had gathered together with other friends at The Donut Company, something our jungle family does every Sunday evening, to re-center and re-focus. To hear from Jesus. Richard had shared John 13.35 with us all:

“By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” 

Love for one another.

That’s the distinguishing characteristic. Love as defined by 1 Corinthians 13. That is what sets us apart in this world. It is so simple. We make it so complicated, don't we?

It’s a love that forgives and remembers no more.  A love that endures all things. A love that is pure and patient and kind and it never, ever ends. 

It is a love that I observed shine brightly that day in that tiny home with the tin roof. 

This definition of love is my prayer for myself, my children, my husband, my family, my friends, my enemies, and total strangers who I meet in the day to day. It’s something I fail at regularly. I am often the one asking forgiveness, the one needing love extended. 

How thankful I am that God is Perfect Love (1 John 4.7-8). 

When we walked back from her house that day, it was as though a weight had been lifted from everyone’s shoulders. Restoration will do that. When a part of the Body is healed after an injury, the whole Body feels and experiences the joy of it. 

As it should. 

Pray for our jungle family. For understanding and ears to hear when conflicts arise, as they will. For endurance through the many trials that come. 

And for our love for one another to always prevail so that the world around us will know we are in fact His disciples. 

Seeing the Aquarium in the Sludge

"Viste mi aquário?" ("Did you see my aquarium?")

She grinned as she leaned over the side of the platform and stared at the tiny fish swimming in the sludge that filtered its way under and around their house. Enamored.

She is a glass-half-full kinda gal.

My sandal snapped and the sludge oozed between my toes as I made my way up the planks to get to the box that she was calling home. It was worse than when I had been here during dry season six months ago, to be sure. She wasn't living in it at the time but now it was where they were sleeping every night. A single mom and her daughter. I could feel my chest tighten and I held back the tears.

"My sister is living like this," was all I could think.

It is unfair to call it a house really. More appropriately called a platform with slats. Sheets are strategically but futilely placed to cover the open window holes and the larger cracks between the wall boards. Mosquitoes and flies paid no attention as they swarmed right past.

Buckets of water sat in one corner and the single, tiny fan vibrated on the uneven floor where the kids piled on the single mattress to watch the hazy cartoon playing on the small TV screen.

Fortunately it wasn't raining because the water nearly flooded the wooden platform each time it did, lifting mosquitoes and raw sewage to closer proximity.

"When it rains, I don't sleep," she told us. "I'm too scared it will flood." It's rainy season. Little sleep.

No locks.
No screen to cover the windows.
No bathroom.
No kitchen.

Not ok.

"Jesus. She is one of our own. Help us help her."

Pricila sat at the plastic table and I could tell she was a little more calloused now. She has been with us for nearly three years at The Donut Company and in that time she has been on quite the roller coaster ride of housing needs and custody battles for her older daughter. To say that women like her are taken advantage of by landlords and the social system would be quite the understatement. So while her living conditions are now far below safe or ideal, after much conversation and council, she felt it better for her to live in a box with no bathroom or running water than to continue to spend half her paycheck paying rent for a puny room with a verbally abusive landlord. That should tell us something.

But if she ever hopes to get custody of her older daughter back from her abusive ex-husband, who is now under a restraining order, she couldn't possibly do so in these conditions.

Stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place. Again.

Bea and Sam specifically have walked with her through some deep valleys and while she has grown in many ways, there is a certain hardening that takes place when life's injustices keep showing up at your dilapidated from step.

For as determined as she is, she is equally tired.

We helped her purchase this piece of property almost a year ago, though she has only lived in it for about a month, and more confusion ensued when the previous owner tried to take it away. She won that battle but the war is far from over.

Richard walked the perimeter of the house. This was his first time seeing the house in person and he echoed the thoughts of us all: this is not good.

The house is old and built where raw sewage and rain run off from the adjoining neighborhoods, a breeding ground for disease and mosquitoes. We repressed our American savior mode as quickly as it crept its sneaky way to the front of our minds. The initial thoughts of "she can't live here" and "we will find her a better place" were settled and replaced with "what can we do now with what's been given?"

The reality is, the vast majority of the world lives in similar or worse circumstances and as much as our instinct would tell us to leave this and find better, we realize that is not sustainable. It's not a long term solution. It's a knee-jerk reaction of the privileged (us) that most often does more harm than good. (Sound strange? Tell me about it. But if there is one thing experience has taught us it's there is not always an easy, quick fix to poverty's very real battles and most of the time Jesus is found right in the sludge and slime if we swallow our pride long enough to find Him.)

Now we see potential in the midst of problem. Fish in the midst of sludge. Just like little K.

So Richard grabbed the sketch pad and started doing what he does best: trouble-shooting and creating a plan of attack.

We now have a plan in place to rebuild Pricila's house. To give it new life. To give her new hope after years of struggle. It's a multi-step process that will no doubt be delayed by the rainy season upon us, but it's doable.

Jhon and a few guys were already able to build her a walkway to her door so that she no longer has to carry K through the sludge when she takes her to school, goes to work, or gets water. First immediate need met.

The neighbor has graciously allowed her to use their bathroom for the time being, but we have team arriving next week that plans to build her a bathroom before heading to Benjamin to help build Joice's house. Second need tentatively met (pray for no rain that day).

Our ultimate goal it disassemble the house entirely, keep the structural pieces that are still sound, lift the foundation of the house, create a gutter system that will help drain the standing water, and rebuild the home to be secure and enclosed.

We project the cost of this project from start to finish at $5,000US.

We are already praying for the Lord to bring us a team.

"Aren't there locals to do the work?" you ask. Great question. The simple answer is no. We asked. We've searched. We've had five years of experience to tell us that in this situation, it is more cost effective and timely to get a team to come down and do the work. Of course, our family on the ground will help, too. But we also value the Body coming together to serve in this way.

Will you pray about giving to this need? Would you be interested in coming down to help physically make this happen? We are thinking March/April 2019 after rainy season tapers off.

If you would like to give, here is the link: www.theamazonnetwork.com/give

Let's put action to our words and love our sister well.

We believe this will do more than provide a safe, clean home (though that's incredibly important). This will also open the door for Pricila to finally get custody of her older daughter, who is in a very vulnerable situation with the father.

Pray. Give. Join us.

A Father for the Fatherless

I'll never forget the look on his face. It is a memory that has come to mind many times since that day over three years ago now. I watched as a man staggered around, finally collapsing to the ground in a heap of drunkeness and I glanced over to see the stare on Rafael's face. It wasn't what you might imagine to see on the face of a ten-year-old boy who just saw his father pass out right in front of the crowd of kids who had gathered together for a friend's birthday party.

It was a sort of blank stare with an odd grin. It wasn't a happy grin, though. (Is there a happy grin to be had when you witness this... again?) It was an embarrassed grin. He continued to watch as Rosa calmly called to her boys to carefully drag him from the road and place him in the grass where at least the risk of getting hit by a mototaxi was lessened.

I pulled Rafael in close and hugged his rigid body tight.

If It Were Me

We drove by her in the taxi today. Her daughter was by my side and I pulled her in closer to me, just in case she had spotted her, too.

I felt it in the pit of my stomach, rising up as it does every time we cross paths. Even if she doesn’t see me, I see her and a wave of emotion overcomes me as I think:

What if that were me?

I glance over at my blonde-haired loves and wonder what it would be like to forget them. To know that they were out there somewhere, but to not really care. I pull my brown-eyed beauty closer still.

And I remember. Grace. That is the only difference.

Because sometimes I am tempted to be angry with her, this woman who gave birth to my daughter. I want to lash out even and say, “How could you?! Don’t you see what you have done? What mother can do that??”

Especially after long days when the thoughts try to enter my mind of how this woman abandoned this girl and now we are left piecing things back together while she goes on merry her way.

But it’s not really like that at all. Not one bit.

Because not too long ago, she was also that broken little girl. She was longing for love and a place to call home. I don’t know much about her, but I imagine she didn’t plan this life this way. I imagine in the beginning she didn’t plan to abandon her own flesh and blood, to leave them begging in the streets.

But she did.

And so will many others. Hopelessness.

And God knows I don’t have the answers to this cycle of hurt people hurting people. It’s a vicious cycle and when you live in the midst of it and you see the kids all around you that are just one short decade from statistically becoming the abandoners instead of the abandonees, it’s overwhelming.

Grace. It’s all there is.

And so we pray for this generation in this little Amazonian town that maybe God would allow us to be a tiny speck of a part in showing them what it can be like when the orphans have a true Father. When the abandonees can grow up to be men and women who love, give, serve, forgive.

God gave us one that is now tightly knit in our family forever.

For three others, He called us to start Grace House for them to find Refuge.

This year, we are praying that we can do even more in this little town to show God’s grace to these littles.

Will you join us? Will you commit to pray for Grace House and the abandoned and abused of this Jungle town?

Let’s be the church and watch as Christ transforms a generation that can impact generations to come.  

Why I am leaving Christianity.

Today, I have decided to do something I wish I would have done a long time ago. I would not have wasted many years and countless dollars in my life had I done so. Maybe I would have made a true difference in the world rather than feeling like I was doing something good with my life....I could "maybe" all night long but I can't change the past. I can, however, make a decision that will make a difference - I am leaving Christianity. Yup, that's right. A missionary just said that he is leaving the very thing we claim to share.....but that's why I'm doing it. I'm leaving Christianity for something much much better. Let me re-phrase that, someONE much better- Christ.

Ashley and I have been on a journey trying to figure it all out for a while now. We have read a lot of books but one book and one Author have made this decision for me. Christ never called us to Christianity - he called us to a life devoted solely to him....not a following.

I have had the opportunity to lead a lot of mission trips and visit a lot of churches. In this time I have been able to witness a lot of Christianity but I see very little of Christ. I see and have been a part of giving the "ABC's" of salvation but other than from Christ and few other books I don't hear anything about following him. How can we take part of what he says and deny the rest? I am guilty of it, horribly guilty of it. Now, I want no more of it.

I want one thing in life - Christ. I don't want the theology, buildings, programs, speeches, week-long experiences, or counterfeit conversions for the number book. I want Christ and I want him to have all of me. I don't want money - I want Him to take all of it. I want to desire wisdom, a glimpse of Him and for people to see Him in me rather than wanting support, to sell my house and insurance.

I am frustrated with the fact that in almost a quarter of a century, I am just now getting this but I have had access to it my whole life. I can't blame a church, a following, or even an idea. I can merely blame myself. My heart is deceitfully wicked, I have allowed my self to be blind to these things.

I have now, finally, realized one thing - I no longer am alive, it is all Christ who lives in me (Gal.2:20). I have been cynical about many things and not realizing my hypocrisy at the same time. I want a life that loves all, no matter what. It is easy to love Indians who need love, orphans, widows..... I want to love my enemy. I want to love the homosexual man that grates my nerves when he walks by, I want to love the Muslim who slaughters my country-men because he has heart as wicked as mine, I want to love the one who hates me for loving him. I want to love them so much that I would prefer to go to hell just so they wouldn't have to. (Romans 9:3)

I want the world to look into my eyes and see Christ.

So, today, I deny my christianity, my patriotism, my life, my family, my desires, my comfort, my happiness, my pride, my church, my friends, my mission board and any other thing that I put in front of Christ.
I want to spend my life for the poor, starving, uncontacted, dirty, hurt and despised. I want to find contentment in sorrow and pain. I want to suffer to make His name known. I want to share in His sufferings, I want to take on more than I can handle, because it is not I who do it but Christ. I want to confound the wise and religious with my actions. I want to do it all not for me, and not to "earn" my salvation, that's impossible, I want to do it because it is what Christ tells me to do. We hear " all you have to do is accept Christ in your heart, you don't want to go to hell do you" but we never share Luke 9:23-25, 57-62. I want it all, not just "to know I'm going to heaven". When Christ gave the gospel he never said, "you want to know you're going to heaven, right?" He said, " Love your neighbor as yourself, sell all you have, take care of the widows and the least of these, take up your cross daily, don't worry about tomorrow, worry about today, live as I live, etc". That is what it takes to follow him - not " to go to heaven" but to fulfill the sole reason I exist.

I don't want my savings account, diploma, logbook, possessions, and ideas unless they do exactly what he would have done with them. He didn't have anything, he gave it all for our sake. I want to give it all for His.
He didn't ask for our "hearts" , money, life, families, dreams. He DEMANDS it all in order to follow him. I no longer want to be lukewarm, thinking I'm hot. I want to be so hot that it burns, that it hurts. I want there to be no question.

I had the awesome opportunity to show Christ to a young girl who had a massive cut in her foot. Everyone else was busy playing but she could not. I took my drinking water and washed it, then I cleaned it with my fingers and bandaged it as best as I could. I rubbed her little feet and later washed them in the river. Why is this in here? Because she looked at me and said, " are you a Christian?". She had no idea we were a church group and I had not said one "Christian" thing the whole time. I simply loved her, gave what I had for her and she saw Christ in that. I would rather clean the wounds of the dirty, diseased and despised for my entire life than to live one day glorifying myself. She saw Christ - not in my Christianity but Him who was living through me.

I deny it all, not so that others might be saved or to find true joy - those are all secondary. I deny it all for Him and His glory.

For anyone who thinks that this is somehow, not right or out of line....it is - with Christianity. It is, however,  right in line with Christ....he is the one who said it- Luke 14:33

Let me ask you something, I had to ask myself. Are you following Christ or are you following Christianity?

Unity in Christ

I (Richard) had an awesome opportunity to lead a group doing some disaster relief in Tuscaloosa, Al. I had been with this particular church before and had been impressed with their servant’s attitude and heart. As a matter of fact, the first time we worked together, I was in charge of leading their team of 42 jr. high students – anyone who has ever spent a week with that many jr. high students can understand what I was thinking I was getting myself into- I was amazed at the maturity that each student showed. We spent one whole day picking up trash in a housing community……oh yeah, and the heat index was 111 degrees with NO shade. I didn’t want to be there, but I never heard one complaint from these kids.

Fast forward and one year later we are going back to the heat of Alabama but this time with an adult team. The trip was great and God used them in many ways. Everybody was included on this trip, BRAND new Christians that were still really trying to figure out the whole God thing to lifetime churchgoers.

There was one person in particular that really encouraged me. She had been saved for just a few months and took it upon herself to find a church to start attending. She was an adult with no real religious background but she said she got to the point where she knew there had to be something more in life (that’s Jesus drawing her to him but that is an entirely different blog post). She accepted Christ and has since started her own ministry working with the homeless (all in the past 5 months). Wait, what?? She can’t do that! She barely knows about Christ herself! She has never been to seminary! She isn’t equipped to run a ministry sharing the gospel and Christ’s love with others! – Really? She’s not? I’ll just be honest with you; she taught me more in her attitude and love for the Bible that week than I have ever learned from a sermon. How is it that someone who has known Christ for less than 6 months has a grasp on the deep relationship that she does? –It is all about Christ. She’ll tell you right now that it is nothing she has done, she has a past but God is now using that for His glory! She doesn’t need to regret or be ashamed of the things that she has been involved in in the past, you want to know why? “Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus, because the Spirit’s law of life has set you free from the law of sin and death!” Rom. 8:1-2

We are now slaves to Christ and in HIM we find life, no longer are we subject to the law of sin and death!

Here is my favorite part, that church that I worked with. It’s not the same denomination I was taught and grew up in (let me put in a quick bit here, their fundamental core beliefs are the same, I do not think it is right to work or encourage the work of those that don’t teach Christ as the Gospel (2 John 9,10) but that is certainly not the issue here) yep, we actually had true unity and spirit as we worked and served Christ. They allowed me the privilege to lead their devotions. I, a Baptist, worked with them, Methodists, to serve Jesus and be his hands and feet. Yeah, we may come to different conclusions on certain (non-Gospel) topics of the scripture, but here is a tidbit of information. Christ was neither!

I was encouraged as we were brought to unity under Christ and served him. New believers, youth pastors, people struggling with addiction and difficulties, and missionaries all came together and presented the body of Christ to those who needed it most.

I am convinced that if we could quit bickering and work together with those who truly bring Christ Gospel, we can reach the world! Jesus teaches us in Luke 9:49/50 a very important lesson. “John responded, Master, we saw someone driving demons out in your name, and we tried to stop him because he does not follow us. DON’T stop him, Jesus told him, because whoever is not against you is for you!”

Let’s get over ourselves and our self-righteousness and work with those who are “not against us” to share Christ with the world!

(Sorry, for those of  you expecting another awesome post by my wife, you were undoubtedly let down by this one but thank you for reading what was on my heart! : )