Romans 4:18-25

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead--since he was about a hundred years old--and that Sarah's womb was also dead.  Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what God had promised.

We have spent nine months in Honduras. And, we have spent a lot of time waiting, during this nine months.  We have waiting to sell our car, to get a new truck, to make friends, to learn the language.  We wait in lines at the bank, wait in the immigration office, wait for meetings and church to start.  During this nine months we have learned a lot about the blessings and the struggles of living here.  Our ministry seems pregnant with possibilities.  What will God call us to do next here in Honduras? 

The word for waiting in Spanish is espera.  It is the same word used for hoping.  We have spent considerable time in salas de espera, waiting rooms, hoping rooms, waiting with children that we have found in need of medical care. This waiting we have done is not an idle waiting, but an active waiting, a waiting with purpose, and a waiting with hope as we trust that through our efforts and with the help of God our efforts can make a difference in people’s lives.

We have waiting with 14-year-old Heydee at Teleton, the rehabilitation hospital in San Pedro Sula.  At Teleton Heydee now receives the speech therapy and instruction in sign language that she needs because of her limited hearing.  And, we wait to hear when she can receive hearing aides, hoping that this will further assist her in learning and becoming more integrated into her community.

We have waited with 3-year-old Hugo at the Eye Clinic to receive word that with future surgery and glasses there is hope that his vision will be functional enough to allow him to read, write and learn without special help. 

Sometimes the waiting seems pointless.  Dare we really hope?  There are some things that are easier to hope for, to trust God for.  The things that we can work towards we can believe can really happen.  But it is difficult to trust and hope in the things that are too big, that we just can’t do enough to bring about.

Is it really possible to hope that the women we work with in the Nutrition Center can be empowered to live better lives through our efforts to educate them, to improve the health of their children, to organize their communities for change? 

Is it really possible to hope, even as we work to complete another nutrition center in Subirana, that someday there won’t be a need for the Nutrition Centers because God’s spirit will blow through the world, the same spirit that fed the 5000 through God’s son Jesus Christ, and birth a people who refuse to accept that “the poor we will always have with us.” 

Is it really possible to wait in the hope that the pervasiveness of family violence present here as it is in the United States, will someday be vanquished?

Dare we believe that the problems of addiction and prostitution can be understood as resulting from people’s desperation, that we can cease to judge victims and through God’s spirit working with us can bring about a different world?