Happy Birthday

This past week has been really great, but emotionally tough. Saturday was my birthday, and while usually a birthday is a time to celebrate life, I found myself lamenting it. On the last post I had mentioned Norma, a 28 year old mother of two who was in a coma after being shot twice, and on Thursday night her brain hemorrhaged around the bullet the doctors were not able to remove and she died. The story that was released was that she was caught in the middle of a gang shooting--a sort of "wrong place at the wrong time" sort of incident. The truth though was that the police mistook her car for a drug runner and they shot her twice in the head. Her 2 year old and her 6 year old were in the car at the time.

The previous day, Leah and I were walking to the bus after buying groceries when a man ran past us--very closely-- with a police officer 15 steps behind him with gun drawn. As they both rounded the corner, two shots were fired. We were probably 30 feet away from all of this, and that is definitely the closest I have ever been to a police shootout. After being here for awhile I can't stay that I was completely surprised by it, but poor Leah hadn't even been here two weeks at that time and I knew she was a little spooked. Later down the block we saw the man being hauled off by the police officer and he wasn't limping or anything, so I suppose he shot in the air or in the dirt. I should have been more affected by it then I was--I think I was more scared by my lack of fear than anything else.

Saturday Leah & I went to the market for what I would consider her first "real" cultural experience, and by real I mean not rubbing elbows with the rich and famous like we do at school, but rather seeing how most of the population lives. These farmers work so hard to harvest their food and drive it into the city, and then only get the equivalent of $.50 for a huge pineapple or $.04 for a cucumber. How they survive I am not certain, especially with gas almost at $3.50 a gallon here. It makes me remember that summer when gas in Florida was around $3 a gallon and how everyday on the radio and TV people's outrage poured out over this travesty, and here it just seems so.....different. I wish I could come up with a more descriptive term, but the right word escapes me.

I was reminded about this time I was in a taxi that stopped to get gas before taking us to our destination, and the driver, who was very nice and easy to talk to, put 50 Lempiras in the gas tank---this is like the equivalent of $2.50. I asked him why he put in so little...I mean afterall, he is a taxi. He told me that if he put a lot of gas in his car that people would siphon it out and steal it. That thought had never occured in my little privileged American mind.

Anyways, back to this weekend. After the market, Leah and I went with a small group to Manos Extendidas, an organization that has feeding centers for the poorest of the poor children as well as sponsorship capabilities (http://www.MEHonduras.org). Usually a group from Pinares goes once a month, but until this month I have always had some sort of obligation, so I have never gone. After traveling into Comayaguela, the poorer half of Tegus that has been swallowed up by urban sprawl, we met at the church that runs the feeding centers and were able to look at their new building, which was still humbling even with the smell of brand new paint and drywall filling the rented one-room. There were no windows, no sound system, and no decorations and yet people could still worship there. I was beginning to think that was impossible without paid musicians with wireless mics transferring sound into stacks of Marshall amps in a newly renovated building. Okay, that might have sounded a little bratty, but I have very strong views on megachurches, or at least that mentality. In addition to being a church, operating feeding centers everyday and finding sponsorship for children, they also help to rehabilitate prostitutes and street kids and even help former gang members hide out so that they will not be killed for leaving the gang. Truly, these people are my heroes.

After meeting up with some of the Hondurans that work the feeding centers day in and day out, we loaded into the cars and went to the poorest outskirts of the city, way up in the mountains after driving up dirt roads that can only be driven with 4WD. Now when I ask you to try and imagine the poorest neighborhood your mind can possibly conjure up, picture us there. There were about 60 children, plastic cup in hand, ready to receive their one meal of the day, which that day was a sort of rice pudding/oatmeal/gruel type food that was portioned out so each child received 1 measuring cup full. We also sang songs with the kids, talked, played, and put on bible skits. Those children are so darling and (thankfully) appeared oblivious to the absolute poverty in which they lived.

I realize that all this sounds quite depressing, and on my birthday I must admit that I was a little depressed. My heart was broken over Norma, I had seen children who had so little that I could probably double their entire family's yearly income with what I pay with in taxes for my job with benefits (that job in the U.S., by the way, would put me under minimum wage. Just added that for perspective). I was also finally feeling a little freaked with the shootout that had just happened a couple of days prior along with some other incidences that I had heard about recently. I thought, how could I possibly celebrate anything to do with my life--my shallow, materialistic life filled with comfort and security--when there is so much need and suffering in the lives of so many? Why was I given another year of life when Norma was not? Why is my life worth keeping sustained when the lives of a good portion of children whom I helped serve food to will have their lives snuffed out before they ever should be? It was then that I felt God gently telling me that He is in control, and that I have His protection for a reason.

I had also been reminded of a conversation I had had earlier that day about traveling around the world. On the bus back from the market, people were talking about all of the fantastic exotic locations that they have been, and I thought about maybe after this contract in Honduras that I could pack up and move to somewhere new, and then after that somewhere new. I could keep teaching as a missionary and I could probably convince myself that I was doing what God wanted me to do and that I was a good person. But that night, sitting on the floor of my closet, crying and talking to God on my 23rd birthday, I knew in my heart that the reason I am here and the reason I am alive is because of those poor kids at the feeding center, because of the taxi drivers I talk to and because of those street kids who happily take my half-drank smoothie I hand them. My job on earth is not to make a bunch of shallow relationships all over the world and collect a portfolio of photographs featuring different races of poor people I helped one time. My purpose here is to go deeper than that. Every breath I am given is given in the hope that with it I can follow Jesus more and do those things that He has called me to do. To feed those kids. To talk in my broken Spanish to people. To become involved in the lives of others who are hurting and needing and feeling more than I ever could imagine. That is why I am here- 23 years old. Happy Birthday to me.