The Nameless Woman…

I left to meet a crippled man named Andres and instead my heart broke for a woman who can’t even remember her name.  

Yesterday I walked around town with Jenny, Jeff and Ryan looking for Andres.  Forty-five minutes passed and I was ready to just head home, we’d had three long days of teaching and I was tired.  We headed towards home and as we walked we ran in to a couple of our instructors who exhorted us to keep pressing into the kingdom.  After that we decided that we couldn’t go back – we’d passed a homeless woman on the streets earlier and so we all decided to go back and talk and pray with her.

As we approached her I could feel my flesh beginning to resist.  Her hair was dirty and crusty, I didn’t know when her last bath was, she smelled of urine and filth, her clothes were falling off and it looked like she’d stuck pieces of green foamy gum all in her bangs.

But then we sat down and my heart just broke in two.  We asked her her name, and she couldn’t remember.  She doesn’t have any family, she sits on the streets and begs, doesn’t have any food.  And she doesn’t have any friends – she can’t carry on a conversation long enough to build a relationship – and it hurts my soul.

What could I do for this woman?  Her mind had gone, hygiene sorely lacking, no food, no water, in desperate need of a pedicure and all I had to offer was Jesus – and she couldn’t even comprehend that!!!  I can’t imagine how Jesus must have felt so often when he was on earth.  So I wept for her, I wept for her situation, her loneliness, her past, her pain, her future, her soul.  

We were in this area for training, so we weren’t connected with any nearby churches.

Everything else is going fairly well.  Here are some brief highlights, pictures and a top ten list (check out my pics for other pictures not posted here).a

1.    36 hour bus ride to Palenque (not the craziest thing I’ve ever done, but precariously close)

2. 2nd place in the race to Palenque! 

3. seeing my dad and other family types (they arrived last Sunday for a week of training)

4.    visiting an Agua Azul.  Quite possibly the prettiest set of waterfalls in the world.

5.    Playing with children during a church service.

6.    Meeting Andres – a man unable to walk (possibly birth defects) on both feet

7.    Getting to hear Andrew Shearman and Gary Black speak into our lives and call out life within us.

8.    Meeting the nameless woman and praying for her

9.    Bombón – one of the tastiest espresso drinks ever, watch out Starbucks!

10.    Learning Spanish again.

11.    Seeing the Ancient Mayan Ruins

Top ten ways you know you’re not in Georgia anymore

10. Mangy dogs must frequently be shooed from group photos

9.  Plaids and florals match.

8.  Public restrooms are a thing of the past –plumbing can also be a moneymaker.

7.  Bathrooms are not equipped with toilet paper.

6.  There are infinite adjectives for sweat.

5.  Jesus shows up in the strangest ways.

4.  There’s no such thing as bland.

3.  Mangos on a popsicle stick.

2.  You have 55 roommates.

1.  No car and no cell.

Love and miss you all!

This is after we reached the top of the ruins for second place!

Playing with the children at a church service in Palenque.

Bri and I at Agua Azul!