Grace Spilled Over

Honduras a beautiful country with beautiful people. Mountains that seem to go on forever.

Countryside’s dotted with grazing cows and horses. Corn and coffee bushes growing on valley floors and mountain slopes.

The lush jungle forests and the loud calls of the brilliant colored Macaws.

There was so much I loved about Honduras.

I loved watching the way the clouds would roll in and cover the tops of the mountains,

the abundance of butterflies and how the light reflected off their wings,

the varied colors of green in the jungle forests, the quaint little towns built on the hillsides,

the beautiful canopy of trees glimpsed from high atop the Mayan Ruins. 

I loved listening to the rain hit our metal roof and our morning wake-up call from the friendly neighborhood rooster, who we fondly called, Rodney

and the sound of my Honduran friends speaking Spanish.

But more than all of this, I loved Honduran’s beautiful people and more specifically the women! They were the reason I was there. They were the reason I had left the comforts of home and all that was familiar.

I loved experiencing our differences; the language, the food, their homes, their ways of worship. But even more than that I loved discovering how we are the same . . . The same concerns; safety for our kids and health for our family.  The same desires; financial security and wanting to be loved. The same struggles; trusting God and finding time to pray.

Life in Honduras was different and yet the same.

I loved getting to know them. Hearing their struggles, seeing their joy, watching their reactions and sharing their pain.

I sat across from a woman who had eight boys! And I thought my four boys was an accomplishment!

I knelt down next to a pastor and held her hand as we prayed over she and her husband. These two beautiful people were barely keeping their heads above water. The weight they carried was overwhelming and suffocating. This pastor had lost her father and mother in the space of one year and the care of the church had fallen to her. She also took over caring for her special-needs sister, dealt with her husband’s brain tumor and resulting handicaps from surgery, and held the weight of faithfully ministering to her church family day in and day out. I saw her deep pain as the tears poured down her face, and listened to her uncontrolled weeping as we laid hands on them and prayed. It was a holy moment as we joined as one in carrying their burden, lifting the weight off their shoulders and renewing their hope. We were The Church, the Body of Christ, doing what God intended His children to do.  Galatians 6.2 “Carry each  other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

Life is different in Honduras and yet much is the same. We serve the same God, read the same Bible, sing many of the same songs and ALL of us, whether we live in Honduras, Africa or North America are called to disciple, to tell others about the Good News that God sees, God knows and loves!

Spilling His Grace,

kristi