I am in Guatemala, blogging from here so I can tell you about the missions of World Help and so I can share the story of those who cannot share it themselves. So in this short post, where the images speak, and my words are few, I am sharing some of the experiences that I am still processing. These images were taken at a feeding center where children and families are fed daily. This feeding center happens to be at the dump, where some of the children call home.
Sometimes the story is not welcome, even if it’s true.
It makes us terribly uncomfortable, like we just don’t know how to process.
It is so foreign, that it seems inconceivable, and maybe,
just hopefully, it’s not even really true.
We may be so distracted and consumed by the things of this world,
that we just do not really have time to embrace the reality of it all.
Or maybe it frightens us a bit, because we know we do not have the answers.
We don’t know how to fix it.
We don’t have enough to give to make it all go away.
The problems seem insurmountable, and the burden too much to bear.
Or maybe we don’t want to know, so then we do not have to be responsible.
Yes, I know what that is like. All of it.
I’ve been their before, in every place.
I am not their now. I am in Guatemala.
In this moment, I welcome the ache in my heart.
Though at times I feel as if I cannot breathe.
And it produces a moan and a groan from a deep place that
can only be understood in the language of God’s Spirit. Romans 8:28
May it be what compels me to action.
May it be what causes me to stand courageous,
and share the story that is not easily welcomed, even if it’s true.
Linking with LisaJo Baker for a 5 minute Friday write. Although mine is not quite the same as usual, I will never be as usual again.
The feeding center is located at the dump, because the children, they work here. Some even live here, rummaging through other people’s trash and living among it so that they might salvage recyclables that will earn them cents a day — taking other’s discards that they may live.
Hope of Life in partnership with World Help, feeds them daily.