part 2: letter from debriefing

it was strange for me- to step off a plane in a country so unfamiliar, knowing what i intend to do and yet not having any clue, really, what i'm getting myself into. i mean, can we ever really grasp what outreach is? how God can potentially move? what are we getting ourselves into?
life...
taking one step at a time...
trust...
the root of faith...
it feels like i've been preparing for so long, building up my belief, my faith, that this is right- what i'm about to do is right and good and purposed. (it's a pride issue...) but as you walk out of the terminal and into the heat and the red dust and the sweet bite of sweat, doubt takes over. what if? remind yourself
it is...
it will...
you will...
they will...
He will...

and so it begins. and putting all that aside, i hop in the van, off to immerse myself in the village horde. we drive, and as i watch out the window, and i see a man stumble into a wall, the brick providing the support his legs cannot, because the deflated paper bag he clutches in his hand has taken his strength and replaced it with an unreality, my reality hits, once again.
we're not in kansas anymore.
my shelteredness astounds me. are these people so different then me? life point one of trip: i am not better, nor is my culture better, than anyone or anything presented here. i must accept that i live in a broken world, and this mircocosm is not worse off than the one i'm familiar with in the states and i'm not here to save it because i can't.

two days later, we reach our first village. once more, even though i lack a mirror, i'm faced with Pride. and i play with the children and try to speak spanish with them, but she's there, screaming in the back of my mind HOW DARE YOU BE HAPPIER THAN ME! you, who have no shoes and live in huts where bugs can kill your heart... reason works my Pride, saying i have more, i have better, therefore i am... i should be... but i only think that because i have experienced a life where i can have more and have taken more. my mind says they should be unhappy because they don't have better but why should they be when they cannot fathom my mind's standard of "better". better for them is a house with a cement floor and a tin roof, the ibuprofen i take for granted, flip-flops i naver think twice about... better for them is life with Jesus and i found myself in quick and dire need of an attitude change. instead of letting the devil work in my emotions and raise my Pride and make me angry that these people lead happier, more content lives then me, i chose to act in the opposite and do my best to help the villagers in anyway i can and rejoice with them in the small pleasure of life. leading to life point two of the trip: americans have everything but time, therefore we never share it with you. hondurans don't have anything but time, therefore they give it with you.

see, what was happening was, as i dwelled in the thoughts of gross superiority, i lost focus and lost interest and lost energy. i began thinking it was pointless, worhtless, that i wasn't really doing anything, because these people could never know, would never know, what i have. (oh, come on. like that's really what's important, sara.) the more i didn't do because i thought it didn't matter, the less i wanted to do. so i forced myself to neglect me and hang out with the kids, sing a song, play soccer... and you know what happened? when i was able to get over myself, i found i was falling more and more in love with the people, with my environment and with my God. because, with the focus off of me, i was able to see that everyone wants to know they are loved and everyone wants to know they are worthwhile. enter life point three of the trip: do something. newton's law of inertia says that an object at rest will stay at rest; an object in motion will stay in motion (i know i over-simplified it, but you get the picture), and i believe God may know a thing or two about physics, so... maybe i should trust Him.

maybe i should trust Him.
more.
often.