A Perspective from Honduras

Honduras 2008
I always seem to be reading two or three books at a time for my devotionals. Right now its Hearing God by Dallas Willard and Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Both very appropriate for our trip as well as Carter’s current sermons about how pathologically self obsessed we are. This was my third missions trip and truly the best. I worked hard all day. I saw as many as 55 patients a day. Our bus had questionable shocks over roads that could have been an amusement park ride. I had minimal resources to help my patients. Occasionally we had hot water. My sheets smelled like an ash tray. My pillow gave a new definition to lumpy. We learned what “the rainy season” is all about. And I tore my thigh muscle getting schooled in soccer by Hondurans who all were quick as lightning and with skills like Pele! Yet I have never felt closer to our Lord nor more like I could hear him speaking directly to my heart 
Without the material trappings we associate with comfort and “need” (OK I did have my iPod!) I really got to spend quality time with people who love radically, like what Francis Chan calls Crazy Love, like the Love God has for us. Everyone I met reminded me what God really desires, ALL OF US. Not just a half hearted “I do enough. I go to church most Sundays” commitment, but a heart and soul, sold out, Love the Lord Your God with All Your Heart and Soul and Might/Love Your Neighbor as Yourself commitment! 6 year old Katelyn White brought huge smiles that made everyone’s day along with love for the other kids and huge hugs. Pastor Walmer, one of the missionaries gave eloquent prayers and encouragement. I long for a prayer life like his . Alfredo Cerrato described his vision for the orphanage and inspired us to think big. The patients touched my heart and soul. How truly pathologically self obsessed my life seems in contrast to the 14 year old who suffered through years of physical abuse and neglect, was finally adopted, but now suffers from end stage, dialysis dependent, kidney disease in a land where dialysis is scarce, let alone the prospect of a transplant! Worse was the toddler with hyperthyroidism whose mom looked gaunt as a concentration camp survivor and felt like a failure because she could only afford to feed him one meal a day!
It all just gives me immense Joy though in a world where the economy seems on the verge of faltering, where people trample to death store employees trying to be the first to get to the latest greatest toys to buy for their kids with the misguided notion that is what love is all about, where terrorism has not gone away as it rears its ugly head in India while we were gone, where 401Ks seem like 201Ks to many and homes are foreclosed…. I am Joyous because God is sovereign. Going to Honduras again so clearly showed me the Lord is present and wants to have an intimate Father/child relationship with us, if we are only willing to truly seek Him and listen with His ears, see with His eyes, touch people’s lives with His hands, speak His words of truth, go where He says to go,…. He really does speak to us. He really does Love us with an absolutely Crazy Love. Despite how pathologically self obsessed we are!
Agape!
Tom Courtney M.D.