For Good Men to Do Nothing

I went to Tegucigalpa the capital yesterday. I drove through Tegucigalpa to get to a little place known as Nuevo Esperanza, or New Hope. It is about an hour on the other side of Tegucigalpa. I left early so I could spend some time with Esmerelda, a girl who used to be in our center. It was great spending time with her. She has grown into such a beautiful girl, inside and out. Doris was my traveling companion this time and we had a wonderful lunch with Esmerelda. We started our feeding frenzy after that. I don't know why travel beckons you to eat continually without ceasing.

We spent the night with Angela Flores, one our first girls to graduate from PTC. She is now engaged and she is planning her wedding. It was good to get to be involved in some of the preparations for that great event. We were trying to plan how we are going to get the older girls to town and where they are going to stay while we are there. I know God is going to work it all out.

I also was in the Honduran capital because I needed to get my passport renewed. I had to make an appointment on line to get into the US embassy and bring photos and the exact change needed in one currency only. WEll my professional photographer in La Esperanza said he knew the correct size. He didn't. It is exactly 2 inches x 2 inches. I didn't have the exact change either, but our embassy here is wonderful and they helped me get through it all. I had never done this before. Brett always had done stuff like that before, so I was in new territory.

I had left really early from Angela's house, because I didn't know how traffic would be and I didn't want to miss my appointment. I left her and Doris sleeping. I didn't know if when I got there if I was going to have to stand in a huge line. Thankfully, traffic was good and I could go in when it was close to my appointment. Since I was so early, I went back to my car and sat and read the newspaper.

While I was reading the bad news, I heard a little boy crying and and older voice yelling at him to "walk!!!" I thought maybe the little boy was out to early, didn't get his nap out or something, but the dad was marching him up the hill as the little guy was crying all the way. The little boy had on a dark blue shirt and khaki shorts. The man was dressed in a white shirt and black pants. He looked like a successful businessman. He opened the back door of his sedan that was along the side walk. He took the little boy, who seemed to be about 3 or 4 years old and put him in the back seat. I thought he was putting him in the car seat and that they would drive off, but then I didn't see the man and I just heard the little boy crying more and the father continuing with his threatenings. Then I saw the car move like it was being shoved or pushed, and then it kept happening and I couldn't see the father but I know he was in the car beating that little boy. I was horrified when I realized what he was doing. I kept thinking it is going to stop, and it didn't. Finally, the man stood up and he saw me, with my horrified look. He immediately changed his voice tone and started cooing to his son in a syrupy sweet voice, "Okay now you are going to be a good boy, Right?" "You need to obey your Poppi". I know I did not school my next look at him, and I admit it was judgmental. I had to look away, because I know my look was screaming what I felt at that moment. The little boy got out trying to breath correctly and sniffling at the same time. The father gave him a pair of sunglasses to put on. Their side of the road was in the shade of the 30 ft wall of the Embassy. All the while the dad was talking sweetly to him that he needed to obey and be a good boy.

I just sat there. I couldn't believe I absolutely did nothing. I guess I was in shock. I thought about why I didn't take my tire iron and go over and do some damage to his very nice car. I wondered why I didn't go over and ask, "Is there a problem?" Is your son having a seizure??? ""Are you having a seizure?" You can think of so many "could have , should have, would have" solutions, but the bottom line is that I didn't do anything. I could have thought of tons of reasons, why I shouldn't have gone over to the car, but I know that I should have done something, anything, to alleviate this little boys suffering. Please be praying for that little boy, God knows who he is, and pray for his father to be a kind father and filled with the love of God, but pray for me too. There was a man who lived during the time of the Nazi take over and he said something like this. "All that it takes for evil to overcome the world is for good men to do nothing". I want to be courageous and not faint or shrink back or be fearful. Fear is a paralyzing quality to a walk with God because it is the opposite of faith. Faith says I can do all things, while fear says I can do nothing. I want to learn the secret of encouraging yourself in the Lord like David did and launch ahead with no fear of man or animals.

I know many of the children in our center had similar circumstances. I am thankful God put them here at the farm surrounded with folks that love them. But I want my legacy to the girls to be that of being strong and courageous and standing for right, and not sitting while wrong is overcoming even one of His little ones. Thanks for all the visitors that helped this month and all the work and words of encouragement to my girls and to me. BLESSINGS, the Overcoming Honduran Mom.

Beaches are Good, Spare Tires are Essential

I decided to carry our Professional, Ana Williams to the beach a day before her plane whisks her off back to Valdosta, where she will be working like crazy to finish her college career and graduate in Dec. I hadn't had a lot of one on one time with her, so I thought it would be a good way to finish her trip. Plus I had tons of errands in San Pedro Sula and Comayagua and Ana is a Macbook expert and I wanted to glean from her all that I could before she left. I had not had a day off in quite sometime, and so I had the brillant thought to go to the beach.

We had a great trip down and it was full of talking about the future of the ministry and the girls at the farm. Ana lived in house #2 and she was already missing the girls. We got into the hotel at about 4 o'clock and went to the beach and then went to the pool that is on the roof of this tiny hotel. We had a great supper of coconut shrimp with a lime and club soda slushy and went to bed. Her flight didn't leave until Thursday morning. I was thinking two days at the beach, leave early for the airport, which is a little over an hour away, a that was my plan, but God kept nudging me to change the plan to go to San Pedro today. I didn't want to do that. I don't like San Pedro Sula that well, and I wanted to stay at the beach, but I decided that I would go ahead and make a reservation in SPS and just obey.

We have been talking to the girls in our nightly devotions about how obedience in God's economy and in His Word shows that you have "great faith". I am working on that myself. Most of the time, I am not focused on hearing from God because so much other stuff is going on, I just miss it. We have discovered that we need to not only to obey, but to obey quickly and not to murmur and complain as you are obeying. Well, I didn't murmur much, :) and I just called the San Pedro Sula hotel, where we normally stay and made a reservation. I canceled the second day at the beach and got ready to go.

While I was paying out at the front desk, one of the hotel employees at the little beach hotel, said "Did you know you have a problem with your tire?" I assured him I didn't know it and so he led me out to the parking lot waving his finger at me to continue to follow him. I looked and he was correct. The tire was as bald as an onion and I had just ridden from Yamaranguila down 3 mountain ranges and over temporary bridges and rough terrain, with a tire that you could see the air on the inside. Well upon further inspection, the bald tire was the spare tire and it was bigger than the other tires. So I looked up under the bed of the truck to see if the other tire was under there. No, it was not. So not only did we have a bad tire, but we had no spare tire either. Who knows where the spare went? I should have checked before we left, but we had just bought a spare not just a few weeks back. A tire went flat and a couple of interns went to town to get the spare fixed. They made a few stops before the tire shop. They stopped at one last place when a thief on a bicycle loaded it up on the handle bars and drove away never to be seen again. We bought one to replace the stolen spare tire right after that, so I know one was under the truck where it belonged. So after we established that there was no spare, we got instructions from the tire repairmen on how to find rims in junk yards.

We got a quote from the first tire guy and we checked out the other establishments. I had to make a decision go to the bank to get money to pay for the tires. I had to get two tires, because the other front tire had a place on it that looked ripped. I was going to put that tire on another rim and retire the spare. We checked with some really sketchy tire repair shops looking for rims, and I decided if we were going to get out of there before dark we would get the tires we needed and go up the road. It was amazing how many tire repair shops have owners/workers with gold teeth, no shirts and large tums, incorrect information /directions, and a ..... gleam. They seemed happy in their work.

I got to the bank and left Ana in the car to watch our belongings. She had her luggage for travel and I had my plastic carry tote for the beach stuffed with the essentials of beach living and a nice laptop. Did I mention that is was hotter than South GA in August? I went into the bank at about 11:45 and there was a line, but not as bad as I suspected there would be before lunch. The next moment, 50 or more people came in the door. I was thankful I got there when I did. It took about 30 minutes but I got the money and went back to the tire store to get the tires changed.

The older gentlemen, who worked on the car, looked like he was on his last leg. When I went to pay out, they were telling me how this old guy had nobody and he was sick with fever and infection. I don't know how anybody knows if one has a fever when it is so hot, but he was not doing well, and the store owner, just opened up about his elderly employee's medical problems and I hadn't even asked. I felt bad about it because he worked like a trojan on changing our tires to get us on our way. We gave the older worker a tip and continued up the road.

Now we didn't get to do everything we planned to do and we didn't even get to do the things we wanted to do, but through obeying, we arrived safely at our destination. If I had of not paid attention and stayed where I wanted to be, we would have found the tire problem the next morning, and we may have missed the plane. I like God. I love it better when I obey and see the reason. God says it is even better when we haven't seen the reason but just do it anyway, trusting that He has our good in mind all the time. My dad used to say, "Do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it". I used to hate it when he said that, but it was good practice on how to listen to authority and to obey quickly.

I have a girl at the farm that repeats all my questions. For example, I say, "Will take out the trash?" She counters with "You want me to take out the trash?" I respond, "Yes, take out the trash". She says, "Take the trash out"? I say incredulously, "Yes! the trash". She replies, "The trash right?" By that time I want to say "Do you need to go to an audiologists and get your hearing checked??" But I don't because I am a missionary, and I am sensitive and I am filled with the peace and fullness of God,:)( but I am thinking it )

Sometimes we have selective hearing, sometimes we are hard of hearing. We will whistle a tune and pretend no one is speaking and sometimes we just put our fingers in out ears and refuse to hear what God is saying to us. We need to be so ready to hear what God is saying. He will speak to us in a still small voice and He will say loudly for all to hear "This is my Son, hear Him!

Jesus says for those who have ears to hear let them hear. That must be an important principal because He repeats it a lot. I started underlining the word "hear" in the Bible . It is in there a lot. It is even mentioned a few times in the Old Testament. The letters in the word "hear" are the first part of the word "heart" There is a hearing with your ears and hearing with your heart. I am praying I will be practicing doing both.

I am glad I was listening today. I didn't move as quickly as I needed to, and I didn't do it as joyfully as I needed to, but I really rejoiced when I knew that I had heard from Him and that I didn't miss what He was trying to show me. I am thankful He kept us safe....again Blessings, the Hearing Honduran MOM