Let's Be Real (Honduras 2014, Part 1)

This is the start of my Honduras 2014 blogs.  I am so blessed to have had the opportunity to visit my sponsored teen Melania, for the second time and spend a week in her community.  Before beginning this series, if you would first like to hear the stories from last year's journey, and how I came to sponsor Melania in the first place, they can be found here, here, here, and here.  I am excited to share this next chapter with you.  I pray for God to use these stories in your life the way He has in mine.

I'll admit, this trip was different.  On one hand, I can honestly say I've never felt more in the center of God's will as I did in Honduras.  I saw His hand in every step I took.  His purpose could not have been clearer.  Part of me wants to brush over these blogs with poetic words and tell only those stories.  You know, the ones where I am reunited with Melania, God steps in, something profound happens, and I spend the rest of the week holding children while reading bible storybooks and singing Vacation Bible School songs.  Trust me, I'll get to that.  On this trip, though, I experienced something else- realness.  If you remember last year, Melania was brought out of her community, five hours away into the city, to meet me.  We spent the day together at a beach resort, and I returned that night to my beautiful Hilton hotel; almost unaware that I was even in a developing country.  This time around, I chose to step into her world.  I longed to invest into her community and multiply the ministry God had given me through her.  As I did, our perfect, cookie-cutter, miraculous story changed.  Let me clarify, it got better.  But it also got realer.  Messier.  We walked dirt roads, sweaty and sun burnt, leaving no room for glamorous photo opportunities.  In addition to the deep, Godly side of Melania that I knew from last year, I also saw her be a teenage girl.  I saw her interact with her friends.  I watched them play soccer together.  I visited her home.  We talked about boys.  She even showed me the selfies she had taken on her cell phone.  Our story was no longer just a story.  The memoir of God's work in our lives that has been admired by hundreds of people through this blog suddenly became a real relationship between two real people.  Two sisters.

On this trip, I experienced poverty.  I saw lack of basic needs.  Lack of opportunity.  God did amazing things in this mountain village of Honduras.  Part of me, the biggest part of me, is ready to pick up and move there sooner than later.  In coming posts, we'll talk about all of that.  Yet, I felt I would be selling you short if I didn't tell you the whole story.  I'm learning that love is not just a touching story.  Love is real.  Love is a mess.  And, no matter what the enemy has to say about the matter, if you endure, love is worth it.

Are you read to go on this love journey with me?