Guatemala: my dad's legacy

We were rumbling down a mountain, heading toward our last night in Guatemala. The bus held many tired but content people, and I couldn't miss the Holy Spirit's quiet voice ministering to my heart as the song "Great is Thy Faithfulness" played from the speaker. As the song faded into another, I was slightly jolted from my meditation of thanksgiving. These words poured over every part of me, coupled with tingles and goose bumps:

"In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise
In the morning, when I rise, give me Jesus..."

My mind raced back nearly two years, to a time when I stood next to my brother in a church, singing those very words. The refrain of my dad's life and legacy:

"Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus,
You can have all this world,
But give me Jesus..."

That day in Guatemala, on the bus, I was overwhelmed by God's presence as I remembered.
Two years ago next Sunday, my daddy went to be with Jesus. As I watched the hills roll on by the window, big tears began to pour down my face because I realized something again: In all the pain I experienced throughout my dad's illness and death, in all the pain of missing him and longing to be with him again, GOD has been and IS faithful.

"When I am alone
When I am alone
When I am alone, give me Jesus"

There have been many moments since my dad left this earth that I have felt alone. I have felt the acute ache where he once resided. As I looked out that bus window, though, God gave me a glimpse of how far He has taken me since that awful day two summers ago. I realized that I never would have been sitting on that bus seat, had my daddy lived. Perhaps even more jarring a thought, I may have never known Jesus, had my daddy not made the life choices and taken the journey he did.

"Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus,
You can have all this world,
But give me Jesus"

My daddy lived to know Jesus, but he died to see Jesus face to face. He was the closest glimpse I have ever had to knowing the Father. He instilled in me a love for people, a love for the lost...a love that took me to Guatemala. I wept on the bus, wishing that I could go home and sit in his lap, tell him all of my stories. It was all worth it, though. The pain of losing him, the pain of missing him, it led me to a beautiful country full of broken people. And I couldn't help but see him in my mind's eye, smiling because I was doing what he would have loved me to do, what he, on his death bed, pleaded me to do...I was loving Jesus.

My dad taught me that God can bring beauty out of pain. I think about the girl in the wheelchair, the pain she suffers every day. If I could tell her and her mama one thing, it would be that God redeems pain. He has redeemed my pain...and made beautiful things out of the dust that was once there. And He will redeem her pain too.

"When I come to die
When I come to die
When I come to die, give me Jesus

Give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus,
You can have all this world,
Just give me Jesus."***

Those words sum up my dad's life-and-death wish. He may not have lived an extravagant life, but when he came to die, he most certainly received the ultimate fulfillment of his deepest longing. As the music on the bus came to an end, the music in my heart only began. "You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of the dust..."


***lyrics to the song "Give Me Jesus"***

Guatemala: the girl in the wheelchair, part 2

I left you with a stricken mother, weeping tears of sorrow over the broken physical state of her daughter. I have to share the rest of the story with you, though, because I have come to know our God as Jehovah-Rapha, the God who heals. I wish I could tell you that precious M* got up out of her wheelchair that day and walked. There have been times in my life when I have wished that God healed in the way that I wanted him to heal. Certainly when my dad was gasping for breath as he moved from this world into eternity, I would have given anything to see him sit up, smile, and say that he was hanging around for a few more years. But God chose to heal his body for eternity. That day in Guatemala, God chose to heal M*'s mama eternally as well...not in body, but in spirit.

As we prayed over M*, begging God to heal her seizures and her permanently dislocated hip, one of our team members quietly asked M*'s mom if she knew Jesus. She whispered that she had not accepted Him as her Savior. Would she like to? Her tears rolled plenty as she talked to God, asking Him to save her and heal her heart. And heal her He did.


M* is in the gray shirt on the left; her mama is to the right of her.

I will never understand God's ways, for they are far above my own. Had I had my own way that day, M* would have gotten a few pills from us and been released from her physical misery. She and her mama also would have continued on their way, untouched by the eternal power of God's love and salvation. Praise Jesus that His ways are not the same as my own. Did God give her the seizures that torment her every day? Did God prevent her from receiving medical care after she dislocated her hip? I don't believe so. I do believe that God used M*'s physical brokenness to lead her and her equally spiritually broken mama to our clinic that day, where He gave us the great privilege of ministering to them His healing love. God used their pain and hurt to bring them to the Living Water...to a healing that will not fade with the brokenness of this creation, but that will carry them into an eternity of forever healing.

God may still heal M*'s ailments on this earth. He is certainly capable, and I pray that He does. But I rejoice in knowing that He has healed her and her mother for eternity! People may look at M* and say that she is no better off than before she came to us that day. If only they knew the implications of the spiritual restoration she and her mama experienced that day...maybe they would not diminish eternal healing in the face of temporary physical brokenness.

We saw M*'s mama one more time, the very next day. She had a grin on her face, from ear to ear, and an unmistakable joy in her heart. Praise God, Jehovah-Rapha...the God who HEALS.

Guatemala: The girl in the wheelchair, Part 1

It was new, all new. I just sat there, seeking to comprehend everything that was going on around me and trying to learn my new role as nurse-caregiver-Spanish speaker (AHEM). People shuffled in and out faster than I could put names to faces. I nearly missed her. But there was something about her face, an anguish that could not be mistaken for anything else. With her were four young children, including a girl, perhaps 8 or 9 years old, occupying a wheelchair.

As this young mom poured out the story of her broken heart, tears formed trails down the dust cloaking her face. With the help of our incredibly compassionate interpreter, she shared the story of her daughter, the girl in the wheelchair. Born with a congenital seizure disorder, M* never goes more than a day or two without facing a debilitating seizure. Years ago, M* dislocated one of her hips, an injury that was never corrected. Without surgery, M* will be confined to a wheelchair permanently.

As M*'s mama sobbed over her daughter's broken state, the love she had for her daughter could not have been more clearly conveyed. She desperately wanted us to fix her child, her baby. There was nothing we could do to fix M*. As our team doctor gently conveyed, again through our interpreter, that he could not take M*'s seizures away or give her the surgery she needed so that she could walk again, my own eyes began to fill with tears.

I could tell M*'s mama would do anything in her power to take away the suffering faced by her daughter every single day. As I wept with everyone else in the room, I was reminded of another Parent, a loving Father who surely cried tears of anguish as He watched His only Son suffer and die the death of a criminal. I cannot begin to imagine the distress this Father felt as He watched His only Son beaten, whipped, and tortured beyond recognition, then hung on a cross and mocked with contempt. Surely He knew this mother's grief. Surely He loved her more than she could comprehend, so much so that He chose to refrain from rescuing His beloved Son from the pain of torture. The tears of a mother, unable to "fix" the hurts of her child, surely fell that day into the mighty hands of a Father who was not unfamiliar with the grief from which those tears poured.

Part 2 to come...

Guatemala Video

I wanted to share some pictures with those of you who have been following my journey to Guatemala and back. I hope it gives you a small glimpse into my time there! Please join me in praying for the men and women and children I encountered while there...many of whom you will meet in this video. If the font is too small to read, enter full screen mode by pushing the button in the bottom right hand corner of the video. Enjoy!

Guatemala: The widow's mite

When do we learn to hoard our vast-beyond-measure stuff? When does the chubby baby sharing a saliva-slimed cracker with anyone and everyone turn into the intemperate toddler who must have everything? Is there salvation for our greedy hearts?

^"1 As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. ² He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. ³ “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. ⁴ All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on" (from Luke 21).

She came and sat down before me, weary from the load she literally and figuratively carried. She smiled shyly, and I was immediately captured by her joyful smile and the radiant beauty of the daughter she held in her lap. Through a translator, we quickly said our hellos and moved onto the more serious matter, that of the medical needs she and her daughter shared. With the resources brought over by our team from the States, I did my best to help her. I gave her a toothbrush and vitamins, some medicine for their ailments. A mite from our millions.

She returned with a mite from her poverty, proving her richness in spirit. As she was standing to leave, repeating over and over, "Gracias, gracias, muchas gracias," she slipped the ruby red headband off of her head and handed it to me. A gift from the richness of her heart.


The red headband is not the most expensive gift I have ever received, nor the most extravagant. It stole my breath just the same, as did what seemed like hundreds of other love offerings I received over the course of my time in Guatemala.

America may be one of the richest countries in the world as far as material wealth goes, but while I was in Guatemala, I watched more than one widow offer her only mite to Jesus. In some ways, they have more than we could ever hope to have.

To conclude our week of clinics, we were blessed by an incredible body of believers who worked alongside us in their own church building. They held a service in celebration of God's work, giving each member of our 31-member team a beautiful gift...a mite from their poverty, from the richness of their hearts.

What have you done with your wealth?

Guatemala: I didn't know, but He knew

"Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard" (Isaiah 58:8)

Where do I begin? Last fall, God led me to apply for a medical mission trip to Guatemala with my church. I did not know what lay ahead...but He did. I did not know that this beautiful, mountainous country would grab a hold of my heart and steal my breath. I did not know that my mind and hands would be captivated by the work of serving the medical needs of some of the most poverty-stricken people on this earth. I did not know that I would work side by side with new friends who love Jesus passionately. I did not know...but He did.

Many of you have been following my journey to Guatemala, supporting me in prayer and with financial gifts. I cannot thank you enough. God is using you to touch lives thousands of miles away...and I pray that He continues to reap what has been sown.

Over the next several weeks, I will share stories of God's work in Guatemala...and needs that I saw and experienced there, for which you can continue to pray. We saw an estimated 2,000 patients while there, and nearly 100 people accepted Christ. The people I met and touched and hugged are not numbers, though. They are children of the living God...and I can't wait to introduce you to some of them.

To Him be the glory!

And we're off!!!

Off to Guatemala...please pray for the team and I! Will post more upon my return = )