For the week of: Monday, February 19th 2007

"Leaving Pride in the Dust"

In seven short weeks, Rick and I and thirty others will be leaving for a 10-day trip to Honduras.  It will be the fifth time my passport will be stamped with entry and departure dates to that country.  It will be a time that will fill my heart with precious memories and, most importantly, provide us with another opportunity to be God’s love with skin on to the Honduran people.

I will forever be humbled by one experience on our second trip in December ’05.   We went with our dear friends Jody and Mary Ann and new friend Neale, to help with the building of Casa de Esperanza, the orphanage where our like-a-daughter, Jen, and Neale’s daughter, Karen now live and serve as co-directors.   While there, our host family, the Kluge’s, found a family in the mountains who needed a new house (new house = a 16’ x 14’ wooden structure, wooden floor, tin roof, one door and window).  So we took a day off from painting and scrubbing at Casa, put on work gloves and scrubs and headed to the site. 

The area surrounding Tegucigalpa, Honduras is mountainous; let’s just start there.  There are people of considerable wealth in Honduras but the majority of the people are impoverished mountain people.  So it was nothing out of the ordinary when we arrived at the building site and had to haul the lumber, tools and supplies up the side of a mountain.  We’ve made many a human chain up the sides of Honduras’ mountains. 

Sometimes, those receiving the new home help with the construction.  This home was being built for one of the local men, Moncho, who had been hired to help with the construction of the orphanage.  He was one of the few men we have met in the mountains who chooses to honor his commitment to his wife and children by staying with them and caring for them. He had shown up for work at Casa every day in the same pants, shoes and shirt (2 buttons remained down the front of the shirt) and worked hard with a smile revealing few teeth but much heart.

I don’t speak Spanish, not much you can understand anyway.  I butcher it pretty badly with some phrases; have learned a few but still rely on others to do most of the verbal communication.  As I usually say, I hug well. 

As we formed our human chain for the uphill haul, Moncho’s wife, Angelica, a lovely young woman and the momma of his three beautiful children, quietly took her place at the foot of the hill, prepared to be a hand-off person.  (Moncho simply shouldered the beams and hoofed it up the hill on his own.)  I was positioned next to Angelica and noticed after about half of the lumber had made its way up the hill that she had a nasty raw blister on her hand.  Often our work gloves seem to walk off of work sites so we usually pack extras and when the extras are gone, we share a pair, keeping one glove and giving the other one to a gloveless worker.  So I slipped off one of my gloves and handed it to her but she wouldn’t take it.  I used every non-verbal form of encouragement I could to let her know it was okay but she declined the glove.  This was going to be a family that helped.

As the day progressed, the corner beams were dropped, the walls went up and eventually the floor and roof were in place.  Approaching dusk, the window and door were crudely crafted with a chain saw, leaving trails of sawdust on the floor of the new home. 

We never stay in the mountains past dark; it’s just not wise to do so.  We began preparations to leave, getting ready to have our prayer of blessing with Moncho, Angelica and the children.  It was two weeks before Christmas so while some of the guys strung Christmas lights inside as a surprise for the children, I decided to sweep up the sawdust on Angelica’s new floor.  I found her makeshift broom behind the house and began the mindless but somehow rewarding chore of sweeping. As sawdust piles began to form on the newly laid floor, I looked around for something to use as a dustpan.  Moncho perceived my need and smiled as he walked toward me.  I waited to see where he was going to pull a dustpan from.  He didn’t.  He kneeled, formed his hands into a scoop and waited for me to push the sawdust into his palms. 

Immediately I said, ‘No, no…” and motioned for him to get up.  But his smile and head nod were insistent.  I continued to argue with him…as much as you can argue using gestures and headshakes.  He didn’t move.  I can’t remember a time in recent years when I have been more humbled than the next few minutes as I swept and he collected and emptied the sweepings out the door, always returning and kneeling before me.  My eyes blurred with tears and the Spirit within me whispered over and over, “the Son of God came not to be served but to serve.” 

I am prideful.  I fight it but it’s in there.  I know it is.  And it is so unlike the One whose Name I have been given as part of our covenant love.  Anyone identify?  Anyone else feel a holy smack every time the Spirit reminds you that you’re being haughty, judgmental, critical? 

I have a new affinity toward dustpans now.  I keep one perched in the garage right outside my kitchen door.  I’m forced to pass it every time I leave my house to get in the car.  I am reminded that a child of God has no place or reason for prideful thoughts or behaviors.  I have no right to think that Kay is above any sin, any loathsome behavior, any act of service or any being created in the image of Almighty God.  May my pride be put to death as I kneel first in heart and then in body before my God and His people. 

Kneeling before you,

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