November 2009

 

God’s Transforming Power in Our Lives…

The older I get, the more thankful I am that God’s Word tells it like it is. In the pages of Holy Scripture, we see example after example of flawed human beings who struggled with their own sin and the effects of other people’s sin. We also see examples of amazing people of faith who were willing to recognize and openly share their struggles.

That great missionary, St. Paul, for example, was willing to recognize things as they were in his own life. He acknowledged the pain of life and understood that where failure reigns and despair rules, God is able to work.

In 2 Corinthians 1:8-9, Paul revealed his battered heart: “We do not want you to be uniformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death.”

To help us understand what Paul was saying, here is how the “Message” translation puts it: “It was so bad we didn’t think we were going to make it. We felt like we’d been sent to death row and that it was all over for us.”

What could have happened in Asia that left Paul feeling so troubled? Was it illness, a mob attack or betrayal by a friend?

Paul’s words help us acknowledge that there are times in our lives when it looks like the end. The hard times strip away false pretenses and reveal our vulnerability. The difficult times make us open to God’s transforming power in our lives.

Paul knew what we must learn. God’s transformation work in our lives does not begin with us, but with him. God is the one who delivers us.  We can not always solve our own problems no matter how much money we have or how much “self-help” we may be able to muster.

This young father of four children was paralyzed after falling out of a tree about six months ago. Since he can’t work, the whole family struggles to survive.   

On my most recent trip to Guatemala in October, I saw example after example of lives that were under great pressure—where I could not imagine how the people involved were going to make it. But in the midst of so much suffering, I also saw people who knew they were at the end of their rope and were consequently wide open to being rescued by a loving God.

For example, in Campanario La Avanzada, a village of about 1,000 people near the city of La Union, where the most lives were lost in last year’s devastating landslides, we visited the local school where we talked with the director and teachers. There were around 270 students in the primary school crowded into two normal-sized class rooms and were spilling into the hallways and even a storage room.

Unlike most schools where so many kids that close together would result in a lot of noise, we were surprised by how quiet it was. A few kids on the playground were not playing but were standing around silently watching us. The director told us that the kids were severely malnourished and most only had “tortillas” and beans and usually only for two meals each day. Amazingly, she also reported that they did not get regular vitamins from the government and that her requests for supplies and more room at the school went unheeded.

In the same village, we met a single mother whose husband had died in the land-slide a year earlier, leaving her to raise her eight children including a year-old baby who was born around the time she lost her husband.

Down the street, we met a young father in a wheel chair surrounded by his four small children and wife. He had fallen out of a tree six months earlier while cutting wood and was now paralyzed from the waist down. Unable to work, he is now dependent upon his poor neighbors and family.

At the end of my October trip, I asked the team from Gainesville, Georgia with whom I was traveling to share some of their reactions to the struggles we saw along the way.

Here’s what one person told me, “In spite of the suffering so many people endure, or perhaps because of it, so many Guatemalan people we met seemed very open to God’s work in their lives. They seemed to understand better than us self-sufficient Americans, that they really need God to rescue them from their difficult circumstances.”

Another team member added, “Recognizing how blessed we are both materially and spiritually, we can’t help but respond with love and compassion to the needs we saw. And while we can’t begin to respond to all the needs, we can bring God’s Good News and demonstrate to some that we know we have a God who cares!”

In God’s Service,

Pastor Steve Hughey

 

CALMS’ Executive Director

 

 

This young mother of eight children lost her husband in the devastating landslides that destroyed over 50 houses in the village of Campanario La Avanzada near La Union, Guatemala. Now she has no one to provide for her family.

These children, among 270 children attending primary school in the village of Campanario La Avanzada, must sit in the dark hallway of a crowded school building built to serve around sixty children.

Soccer Balls: Symbols of Hope in the Midst of Suffering 

During a recent mission trip to Guatemala, six members of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Gainesville, Georgia led by Pastor Ben Haupt, gave out new soccer balls to children who lived in struggling situations.

I came to see the soccer balls as a symbol of hope to these kids and their families. Here’s a photo essay that captures better than any words how this team of God’s ordinary people shared in word and deed the “hope” that surpasses all human understanding.

  

Left: This young boy, one of over 250 children in his school, holds a busted soccer ball—a symbol of the extreme poverty in this mountain village that has seen so much loss—a loss of lives, livelihood and childhood.

Right: The school director in this photo holds one of several new soccer balls that the CALMS’ mission team from Gainesville, Georgia gave to the school for the children.

 

This young man, Selvin, a member of Resurrection Lutheran Church (Iglesia Luterana La Resurrección) in Gualan, received a new house in September and a soccer ball in October. One way he is able to share his own gratitude for all that God is doing in his life is by helping the dozens of neighborhood children in Los Limones — a poor community of around 400 families, play soccer together.

This young boy holds a new soccer ball presented by our October CALMS team. Like thousands of children in Guatemala, he is now being raised by his grandmother. She told us, “He really needs a man in his life since his father and mother are in the United States working to send money home to help feed the children. Unfortunately,” she added, “they are unable to send very much now because of the economic down-turn in the USA.”

Pray for Us…

Pray for Sonia Cordón, a single mom and member of Divine Savior Lutheran Church (Iglesia Luterana El Divino Salvador) in Zacapa, Guatemala, who received some house-warming gifts from team member Pamela Jovaag, at the dedication of her new home. Thank God for the generosity of Pamela’s congregation, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Gainesville, Georgia who worked with CALMS to help this young woman and her child!

 

Ask the Lord of the Harvest to bless the family of José Antón, a blind member of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (Iglesia Luterana Santísima Trinidad) in La Trementina, near Zacapa, Guatemala shown in this picture. Pray for the CALMS’ team from Washington, Missouri, who will be finishing this family’s new house and helping the congregation in Guatemala with a VBS and medical outreach in early November.

 

Pray that the Holy Spirit would guide CALMS’ leadership team as they seek to respond to the many needs in the village of Campanario La Avanzada, a mountain village in Guatemala devastated by last year’s landslides. Ask the Lord of the Harvest, to provide laborers to help build new houses, bring health and healing to the many sick people and to bless plans to build a new community center to help provide needed community services such as extra class room space for the village school.

 

Thank God for the weekly children’s outreach at the clinic in Amatitlan, led by Dr. Abdiel Orozco, pastor of Mighty Fortress Lutheran Church (Iglesia Luterana Castillo Fuerte) and the congregation’s youth group. Ask God to bless the new adult Bible class at the clinic so that more and more people might come to know and serve Jesus as Savior and Lord!