Living the Gospel

5:30 am. alarm. limited quiet time. get ready. breakfast. pack lunch. out the door. work. students. standardized tests. pressure. preparation. teaching. stress. relationships. busyness. cell phone. texts. email. constant communication. planning. meeting. coffee date with friend. grocery store. list. tasks. hurry. shop. talk. wait in line. self-checkout. fast. next stop. home. cook. late. take food to friend. enjoy friend's baby. agenda. next stop. ice cream with friend. meanwhile. talk/text/communicate. rush. home finally. laundry. roommates. email. read. sleep.

Whew! It stresses me out to even think of the pace of life that I maintain in the States. It is a wonderful life and i am very blessed, but sometimes it's exhausting.

Now, I'm here in Honduras an time has slowed down so much that i don't even wear a watch

There's not a deadline, a schedule, a time frame...no rush. Yesterday, I spent all day sewing with a co-worker. We made 3 bags all day, and it was a great accomplishment. We med

med a friendship through laughter, miscommunication, and sewing needles. No cell phone interruptions, no meetings, no stress. The day before that I played with precious children. Adopted orphans and biological alike, we

played futbol, ate chicken & rice, fed the hens, washed the dishes, laughed, sang, and rested. Again, no interruptions, expectations or tasks to accomplish. I know that life isn't always so simple here, however. People have jobs, cell phones,

obligations, etc., but it seems that God has removed those things from my life for a month to grab my attention. Rarely do I have the time (or take the time) at home to self-reflect, examine my heart, and listen to the Lord. What am I idolizing? Who/what gets my attention, my energy, and my focus instead of Him? Who am I serving? What are my priorities? When you sit at a sewing machine for five hours, it becomes pretty obvious where your heart is wandering. It's time to take a deep breath and allow the Holy Spirit to convict, reveal & purify where my heart has lost its way. For this time, I am grateful. For these people who have opened their homes to me with open arms, I am indebted.

The Lord has grabbed my attention in these past 4 days and I am learning to slow down and refocus on Him. May the Holy Spirit continue to work throughout my time here. I cannot truly serve the Lord until I surrender to Him. One day at a time..

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it.

Prone to leave the God I love!

Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it,

Seal it for Thy courts above.

(Written Thursday, June 10th)

Summit Orphan 2011

Estamos en las conferencias de Summit Orphan, en las instalaciones de la iglesia Southesast Christian Church que tiene la iglesia una membresia de 25,000 y que tiene instalaciones grandes, grandes, grandesssssss.. Si el salón de adoracion tiene una capacidad como para 5,000 personas estilo teatro, tres niveles, 8 pantallas gigantes y como 6 torres de parlantes asi como su propio sistema de transmisión en las pantallas con cámaras profesionales y audio de primera. Que comenzó con una banda de Rock-alternativo cristiano que tenia buen ambiente y que hacia que el estruendo del bajo rebotara en el pecho de las personas que estuvimos en el concierto de este grupo llamado The Dessperation Band..

Hemos podido asistir a diferentes conferencias sobre muchas cosas que debemos saber para el mejor y eficaz ayuda hacia los huérfanos, aunque a mi en especial no me gustan las estadísticas les contare que hay diferentes cifras de cuantos huérfanos hay en el mundo, pero el promedio oscila entre los 163 a 166.5 millones de huérfanos alrededor del mundo. Y el hecho que miles de personas se reúnen para compartir ideas e información sobre como mejorar la vidad de estos es de por si algo impactante.

Las pequeñas cosas que hacen la diferencia

Esta es la primera vez que se me ocurre la idea de escribir sobre las diferencias culturales que encuentro al venir a estados unidos, básicamente porque es mi segunda vez aquí…. La verdad que aparentemente este es el país del sí se puede y de los más desarrollados del mundo, no me mal entienda la verdad que si lo es; pero también es cierto que están orgullosos de mostrarlos en cada situación.

Este el país que todo lo tiene todo lo puede, aunque todavía no he encontrado una buena baleada o plátanos fritos pero si bastantes sándwich, de pollo, de jamón, de pavo, de cerdo, hasta me encontré un sándwich de ensalada de pollo… imagínense hasta las ensaladas tienen sándwich!!!

Este es el país en que la coca cola y el café, le agregan otros sabores para ocultar el hecho de que no son tan buenos como en Honduras... la coca cola sobre todo no tiene tan buen sabor como en casa. Lo que si es bueno es que uno puede ir a la mayoría de los baños y sentarse en el asiento porque para empezar hay asiento y que está limpio y en buenas condiciones, lo raro es que no hay papelera, la verdad es que el papel va adentro del servicio..

Después siempre hay agua para tirar papel, para lavarse las manos y mejor aun jabón para lavarse bien, cosa que deberíamos de imitar, no robarse el jabón o las toallas de mano para secarse; este es el país también en que es permitido ir hablando por teléfono mientras maneja, en donde todos respetan las señales de Alto y los semáforos.

El aeropuerto de Houston es algo exagerado, estaba esperando que al salir de migración estuviera mucha gente esperando a sus familiares, pero la verdad no fue así; no habían cámaras despidiendo a sus familiares o grupos de familia recibiendo a los viajeros, de hecho al salir del aeropuerto recogí mi equipaje y busque la puerta en donde tenía que hacer la conexión y me tomo como 10 minutos el llegar a un tren que pasa de edificio en edificio de las 5 terminales (Edificios) que tiene el aeropuerto… nada que ver con SPS o Tegus.. La verdad me asuste un poco porque no llegaba a tiempo.

The Study of Orphan Care Leads to Humility

Plato once said, "The study of Astronomy leads to humility." That is definitely true - just one look at pictures from the Hubble telescope makes this point clear.

Similarly, as I have found in the last few years, the study of how to bring excellence to orphan care also leads to humility. It is easy to get lost in the numbers of the orphan crisis (e.g., over 167,000,000 orphans in the world) and give up. To say that we simply cannot do anything about it. That there is no way we can figure out how to address it as a comprehensive whole. That we simply cannot understand it. That we can't get families for all of these kids. That [fill in the blank with countless other reasons not to engage].

People have said similar things about the heavens over the centuries. That we cannot even begin to understand the universe surrounding us. But other people, like Galileo, Ptolemy, Copernicus, and the inventors of the Hubble telescope, to name a few, said that it is not OK to simply accept defeat in our understanding of the heavens. Even though they accepted the fact that the universe is HUGE and that they likely would never figure it out, they said, "We can work to understand it better." There are answers to our questions. While we personally might not be able to figure all of them out, we can start working to find answers, ask more questions, discover more answers, and so on. They said that they could take baby steps to figuring out the heavens and they saw any additional knowledge, no matter how small, as a victory, all the while knowing that it was extremely unlikely that the answers to all of their questions would be solved in their lifetime. (Part of this is that I believe there simply are certain things that we as humans are not supposed to understand.)

Because these guys that didn't listen to the naysayers, we have slowly progressed over the years as they built on each other's discoveries, and today we can see stars billions of light years away through the Hubble Telescope - we are closer to an understanding of what is going on out there. If people wouldn’t have said that we can begin to figure it out, then the Hubble never would’ve happened

We need to apply that same mindset and ingenuity to the improvement of orphan care! While on the one hand we need to recognize the magnitude of the problem and face the fact that we can't solve it on our own, we also need to work to understand it better and seek God's wisdom and discernment on how to develop solutions.  We need to work together, collaborating together to understand the vastness of the crisis and the best way to develop the kids' lives to give them an opportunity to be leaders in their communities. We need to continue asking hard questions and analyzing best practices with the same commitment as we would if our own children were in an orphanage. We need to think bigger and with more excellence (e.g., family-based orphanages, top-quality schools, great medical care and nutrition, and participation in their local community), which will enable us to begin shifting the paradigm surrounding orphans from one where they are seen as a waste of resources to one where they are treated as investments. Only then will we really be making in-roads to making orphanages and orphan care better.

Or, in the alternative, we can keep wading in the current problematic paradigm seeing the orphans as second-rate humans, as a drain on society, as trash, as a waste of resources, AND we thus will keep viewing the orphan crisis as a universe that is way too big to understand, address, and work within.

So, yes, the study of orphan care leads to humility. But, fortunately for the millions of orphans around the world, it doesn't lead to futility.

I Will BLESS YOU AND YOU WILL BE A BLESSING (WORD OF GOD)

In this month of January the Lord has allowed me to have the opportunity to be a blessing to a new set of children, by giving them the chance to have lower extremities orthopedic surgery

.

It has been such a blessing for us who are able to participate with the medical teams. To freely give your time and energy to serve someone else, to be able to actually put into practice the word of God: “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me”. It is an accomplishment in our lives to see firsthand these children’s lives change right in front of us. Children coming in with disabilities and after a six week recovery are able to start their life differently, with more opportunities and new hopes.

One unique case we had this Janua

ry was a set of twins around eight years old. They both had a deformity on their feet since the day they were born. Their family lives in a community far away from the Siguatepeque area in Honduras, and they did not have the opportunity of having a surgery. Thanks to the Lord and the help of an organization they were able to come to our clinic and were chosen for

surgery.

On the first day of changing casts from the previous surgeries in January, we were able to witness the expressions of happiness in her eyes when she was able to see her feet for the first time in six weeks. It was so touching to hear and see the excitement when she told her mom “Look mommy at how pretty my little foot is”. The emotion of happiness was overflowing, I felt so small being able to witness it all. I honestly did not realize how important these changes were for each individual case, it made me appreciate how much one person can make a difference in another life. Without a doubt these expressions of happiness from parents, patients, families, and friends allow to us realize that it is well worth it to have medical teams come and willingly donate their time, energy, hard work, and skills to help in a way that literally changes the lives of their patients.

Medical team’s Thank you so much for giving these patients new dreams to look forward too. Thank you for changing their lives, as well as the lives of their families. Giving a child a new opportunity at life with new hopes and dreams is a priceless gift. THANK YOU THANK YOU!

A Friend Experience

My time at La Providencia this week has been bitter sweet. This has been my third trip down here to Siguatepeque & unfortunately it will be my last (at least for a while). I am a part of an organization, called LeaderTreks, which has been partnering with La Providencia for the past several years. They offer us a unique setting where we can use the work they have for us as a tool to develop leaders to fulfill the Great Commission. A co-worker and I met up with a team of high school students from Holland, Michigan. We had the great opportunity to help La Providencia put in a playground for the children to who attend the school here.

Our team was challenged both physically and spiritually this week. As we worked some long & hard days we were also working through the book of James in the evenings as a team. We all were challenged by the lives of the staff, teachers & children who were here throughout the week. I’ve known for a while that James 1:27 has been a verse that La Providencia has rallied around. To see them already taking care of orphans & in pursuit of how they can take care of the widows is something that inspires me. But it was this week that I was really challenged by the last part of that verse, “to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” This had not stuck out to me in the past, but this week God challenged me to observe the people here and see how they were going about keeping themselves from being polluted by the world.

La Providencia is a ministry that is very dear to my heart. One that I will remember for the rest of my life in the ways that it changed my view of the world & of our God.

By Ryan Billelo

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Last week Doctora Turcios and I went to Tegucigalpa to collaborate with on the process of fabricating AFOS (Ankle Foot Orthopedic shoes) for patients that had an orthopedic surgery in January. The shoes are important to improve the way the patients use their body to walk, and in that make it more efficient for the recovery process.

In Tegucigalpa right now there are groups of teachers protesting under the maintenance of the Leaders of the Teachers affiliate to the public System. They are protesting because the government wants to change the way the salary is calculated. Every year the salary increases but right now in Honduras the government is struggling to pay, and in the future there is the possibility of not being able to pay the teachers. But in a Honduran society there is an eternal fight between the rich and the poor.

Thursday Dr. Turcios and I were having lunch at a restaurant, and in that time the manifestation of the teachers protesting got to the point where the police needed it to step in and react. The teachers had blocked the free traffic in the street, so the police used water tanks to spray water and also used gas to calm the protestors down. The water and gas only made the protestors more aggravated and more enraged. They started throwing rocks at the police officers, nearby offices, restaurants, and even street signs. The restaurant that Dr. Turcios and I were eating at was about 25 meters away from all of the action. The rocks that the protestors were throwing were hitting the glass of the restaurant, with the idea that the owners could afford to replace the damaged property.

The environment inside the restaurant was filled with incredible fear and in some cases hysteria. Some of the people hid in the restrooms or behind concrete walls, while others watched in shock as the events unfolded right in front of our eyes. Once the craziness calmed down outside and things seemed to be less dangerous, an excited discussion started between the people inside the restaurant. Of course there are always two sides to every story, one side in favor of the protesting teachers and others in favor against. Both having seen the same events take place and both having different opinions based on what was seen. Later on that day the news on the T.V. had the same two sides of the story and interpretation. Show after show was different even thought they have the same videos and pictures. There were some shows that were more neutral on the situation because they don’t want confrontation with their viewers and lose their audience. Some are afraid to say or think against the network they work for in fear for their jobs or because they have nothing more to express about what was going on.

To be honest the same story happens in most of the situations here in our country or around the world. In decades the society has been feed the idea that if someone does not help us or things the way we want, they are then converted into our enemies. This creates a hostile enviroment for organizations like Providence that try to change the way we help others. We believe that we can make a impact in others life’s by changing the way they act and face situations based on economic status. We encourage them to act in a way that can help themselves and then promote helping others in that way. Leading by example teaching a person how to help themselves and giving them the tools to succeed and lead by example, not just by giving a handout.

It was nice to see the contrast of the people that are a little more aware about the future. Out of the group of families that came for the AFOS, 2 of them have kids with special needs. The amount of work that they do with them is unbelievable; they volunteer or try to help others with the same disabilities. To quote one of my teachers from the school “We call them special kids, because they have special parents” and to be honest that is very true. I was able to see how these couples spend the time trying to make their kids comfortable, while enjoying the time with them. Even one of the 2 couples is divorced but they spend a lot of time together because of their love for their child. I wonder kind of life these kids would have without this quality of parents, or if their parents would think the same way of others and say that this happened to their children because of the poverty. The truth is that it’s not because of poverty what so ever, but Because God in his immense wisdom set things to happen for his Glory. He has a plan for each and every one of the families and there is a reason for children being born a certain way and in this moment we might not know why but God will reveal his plans to us on his time.

La Providencia Polaroid

These is the story of Pedrito in his surgery process, before pedrito went into surgery he was full of energy, running around the building, jumping off of chairs and full of laughter. When he came out of surgery, it was like he was a whole different person. He woke up angry, violent and in a lot of pain. During his recovery process he seemed to behave the same very aggressive and non-cooperative. After 6 weeks of recovery whit his feet in casts, he returned to have a checkup. I was afraid of how to control him thought the process of taking off the old cast, removing the pins in his feet and resetting a new cast.

When the doctor first saw him he suggested that we sedate him, it was the best idea ever. He was calm and very relaxed and didn’t give us any Hassel. We removed the cast and the pins and pedrito left the clinic pain free and not afraid of doctors. He was excited to look at his feet and as he left he said “take care, I love you!!”