This Christmas, more than ever... I am seeing everywhere and feeling in me the lyrics of this beautiful Christmas song O Holy Night --- "A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices..."
Friends, our world is weary and broken. There are wars. People are displaced and oppressed. Extreme poverty is still a reality. Children starve. Mothers cry. Fathers are absent.
This Advent, more than ever... I am understanding its meaning in the truest sense as our family, alongside our church family, await the imminent arrival of our two sponsored Syrian refugee families. Each additional day we are required to wait is another day they endure living in a refugee camp somewhere in Lebanon...
Yet, this...this is why I still dare to hope.
Gaining hope, I remember and wait for this thought:
How enduring is God’s loyal love; the Eternal has inexhaustible compassion.
Here they are, every morning, new! Your faithfulness, God, is as broad as the day.
Have courage, for the Eternal is all that I will need. My soul boasts, “Hope in God; just wait.”
It is good. The Eternal One is good to those who expect Him, to those who seek Him wholeheartedly.
It is good to wait quietly for the Eternal to make things right again.
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we;
Let all within us praise His holy name.
And so we sing sweet hymns of joy, because our Jesus, He shines --- "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. (John 1:5, NLT)"
And we continue to find ways to be His hands and His feet in this broken and weary world.
How shall I come before Yahweh, and bow myself before the exalted God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
Will Yahweh be pleased with thousands of rams? With tens of thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first-born for my disobedience? The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has shown you, O man, what is good. What does Yahweh require of you, but to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?
- Micah 6:6-8, World English Bible (emphasis mine).
Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year from our family to yours! {Our year-end family update can be found here.}
May you sense God's peace and His love, more than ever, this Christmas and throughout this coming New Year.
Friends, will you sing this beautiful Christmas carol with us?
O holy night! The stars are brightly shining; it is the night of the dear Saviour's birth!
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we; let all within us praise His holy name.
Compassion is a command, an act of worship, a song of thanks to Him.
I wrote this at the start of the year... yet, never in my wildest imagination would I have envisioned what God would have for our family this year:
... and I have suddenly found myself, at the start of this New Year, in a place of seeking what God's next steps are for us this year and for the longer term.
And so, I will seek... because...
"When you seek Me in prayer and worship, you will find Me available to you. If you seek Me with all your heart and soul, I will make Myself available to you," says the Lord.
Little did I know just how many yeses this resolve-to-seek-God would entail... and just how wild the joy is that would follow them. All year, this quote by Kristen Welch resonated with me:
Our yes to God should scare us. Not to keep us immobile, but to keep us dependent on the One who asks us to say it in the first place.
Fear keeps us moving towards God. Yes, there is fear in obedience. But peace keeps us on the journey. And the joy that follows our yes to God is wild.
One out-of-my-comfort-zone YES was followed by another and another and another...
Yet, the biggest YES that God is asking our family to say was still coming and it would come in the form of a big change for me... in the form of a new job. I have always loved this quote by Frederick Buechner: "The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet."
And, that's just where He has asked me to say YES!
A photo posted by Aimee Esparaz (@mama2greatkids) on
I am beyond excited to share that, in the New Year, I will be stepping into the role of Ministry Relations Representative for the Greater Toronto Area for Compassion Canada, an organization that our family so dearly loves and supports!
I am still pinching myself... as sometimes I still think that this can't be really happening. It is a huge gift to be able to work for an organization where every.single.day I can live out Micah 6:8 in the most tangible and realest way.
This decision definitely didn't come easy... only after much prayer, contemplation and soul-searching. It is a scary YES, but also equally exciting! In the early days of considering this opportunity, these verses from Ephesians 3:7-21 have been paramount as God used them to speak to me:
This is my life work: helping people understand and respond to this Message. It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities.
And so here I am, preaching and writing about things that are way over my head, the inexhaustible riches and generosity of Christ. My task is to bring out in the open and make plain what God, who created all this in the first place, has been doing in secret and behind the scenes all along. Through followers of Jesus like yourselves gathered in churches, this extraordinary plan of God is becoming known and talked about even among the angels!
All this is proceeding along lines planned all along by God and then executed in Christ Jesus. When we trust in him, we’re free to say whatever needs to be said, bold to go wherever we need to go. So don’t let my present trouble on your behalf get you down. Be proud!
My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
There were also many markers,allowing me to see God's hand in all.of.this. upcoming change...markers that God seemingly put in place to let me know that He's got this! Little details such as the verse from Leviticus 23:22, the verse we found bookmarked, highlighted and underlined in our beloved Papa's Bible as we sifted through his earthly belongings after his home-going to heaven.
We have since sought to live out the meaning of this verse in our family's everyday life.
When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and for the foreigner residing among you. I am the Lord your God.
A photo posted by Aimee Esparaz (@mama2greatkids) on
Or little details such as this video of Wess Stafford's story. Wess, or Papa Wess as he is fondly known to many, is President Emeritus of Compassion International. In the video, he invites everyone to join him as advocates for children, all children. He says, "Maybe it's joining us at Compassion..." and "together, we can make the world a better place for these children."
His story caused me to look back to my childhood and it resonates strongly with me...once a damaged child, now entrusted with a ministry serving the world's most vulnerable children...evidence that God is in the business of transfiguring brokenness into something beautiful! And that question at the end of the video... "What about the rest of them?" That question fuels me. It is the reason our family tirelessly advocates for Compassion for many years now.
Or little details such as God's hand in ensuring that the transition from my current job is done well and that I leave with a good testimony.
This is of paramount importance to me as my manager has been such a blessing to me all these years. I absolutely count these thirteen years that I've worked for her as pure gift because it has allowed me to stay home for my children during their most formative years. Not many mamas have had the same opportunity! I have been utterly blown away at how impeccable the timing is and how seamless the transition has been.Only God could have arranged those details... for which I will forever be grateful! Now, a new God-adventure is on the horizon... one that is beyond what I've asked for or even imagined, just like the verse from Ephesians 3:20 says.
How awesome is it that I get to have my family along (sometimes!) with me at work? How awesome is it that they are all equally as passionate about Compassion's mission as I am?How awesome is it that we acknowledge this as God's calling on our entire family, and not just for me? So breathtakingly awesome. More than words can even express. I am utterly humbled and deeply grateful... can't wait to see what God has in store!
Our most favourite thing to do together as a family!
A photo posted by Aimee Esparaz (@mama2greatkids) on
This photo is special to me because it was taken at my last official event as an Advocate, just last weekend...
but, once an Advocate, always an Advocate! I will always, always,always be an Advocate at heart! ♥
And did I mention that I get to work with this amazingly crazy bunch of people?
This awesome team represents Compassion Canada across this vast country of ours.
This photo was taken just last week at this year's Christmas Party.
They graciously invited this newbie and her hubby even though I don't officially start in my role until the New Year!
I am blessed. I can bless. Imagine! I could let Him make me the gift!
I could be the joy!
In an endless cycle of grace, He gives us gifts to serve the world. This is how to make a life great and eucharisteo embarks us on the path: "Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave" (Matthew 20:26-27).
It's the fundamental, lavish, radical nature of the upside-down economy of God.
Empty to fill.
Here I can become the blessing, a little life that multiplies joy, making the larger world a better place.
God can enter into me, even me, and use these hands, these feet, to be His love, a love that goes on and on and on forever, endless cycle of grace.
~ Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts.
Compassion is a command, an act of worship, a song of thanks to Him.
Recently, I put together this photo collage to put up on my inspiration wall in my home office. It is now hanging on the wall right above my computer screen. It is the first thing that my eyes see when I look up from working on my computer.
All four are images of children outside the gate... and they are the reason why our family tirelessly advocates for Compassion.
We all saw it... that heart-wrenching photo of little Aylan Kurdi's body washing up on that Turkish beach.
It was a lazy summer evening in early September and our whole family was sitting around watching late-night television. Hubby is a self-proclaimed news junkie so he was characteristically scrolling through the news on his hand-held tablet as we all watched a show together.
I will never forget the look on his face as he handed me his hand-held device and said, "You'll want to read this." It was this CNN article. I read the first couple sentences and was instantly undone...
The 3-year-old lies face down, his head to one side with his bottom slightly up -- the way toddlers like to sleep.
But the water is lapping around his face and his body is lifeless. (Source: CNN)
I am quite embarrassed to admit that, until that night, I was oblivious to the Syrian refugee crisis that was ballooning out of control.
The next few days, my eyes were glued to the news and to my social media feeds. The world, it seems, just like myself... got jolted out of its obliviousness.
I will forever be grateful for people like my friend, Ann Voskamp, who chose to use her powerful online presence to speak out for Syrian refugees. Within a few hours, she had set-up a Facebook page called Aylan's Dreams which ballooned into this movement called We Welcome Refugees, in partnership with organizations like World Relief and The Justice Conference among others.
That very night, my girl penned a letter to little Aylan even before we knew his name. Dear Nameless Boy, she writes...
We've filled churches on Sundays while you and your people filled boats and sailed straight to death - and are we really being the Church or just filling steepled buildings hollow?
Because we're full of empty good intentions and real-sounding excuses when we should be full of the love of Christ.
And sweet boy, this is my apology, this is my outcry, but mostly this is my confession.
I woke up to her words the next morning and they pierced the very depths of my heart.
Now, NOW, is the time for the Church to be the Church. We cannot, cannot, afford to miss this opportunity — and miss Him.
In the past, the Church may have been defined by what the Church is against, but, in this defining moment in history, may the Church be clearly defined by what it is for.
And the Church has always been for the stranger, the sojourner, and for being like the welcoming arms of the Saviour.
How can we not move heaven and earth to let the broken in — when heaven moved and came to earth to let us in?
Sunday came and my heart was still heavy. My girl's words rang clear in my mind, but mostly in my heart: "Because we're full of empty good intentions and real-sounding excuses when we should be full of the love of Christ."
I knew then that God was asking our family to act, to do something... for such a time as this.
A quick chat with our Lead Pastor revealed that there were at least a handful of people in our church family ready to act, ready to do something. Without knowing what that something is, I told him, "Yes, I am willing to head up this initiative... whatever it might be."
That YES started a whirlwind week of fact-finding which resulted in our church community committing to sponsoring two refugee families from Syria via Mennonite Central Committee.
I wasn't prepared for the outpouring of support...
What started as an interest from just a handful of people resulted in an outpouring of support that I have never experienced or seen before!It has been so heart-warming to see God working beautifully in people's hearts. Steve, a brother from our church family, shared his own family's refugee journey and many hearts were moved to respond. My girl consequently writes a second letter to little Aylan... in it she writes about just how blessed we are to have a church family whose response to this refugee crisis has been more than what we have asked for or even imagined!
This is community.
This is how we come together as the Body of Christ to respond to the worst refugee crisis since World War II.
We're smack in the middle of history and when it's all said and done we want to be remembered as the generation who welcomed the strangers as if they were Christ himself, running into Egypt, fleeing Herod's slaughter as a refugee.
Friends, this week Mennonite Central Committee tallied all the donations that have come in for our fundraising registry and seeing the total dollars raised literally moved me to tears --- $68,190!!! This is evidence of God beautifully at work in people's hearts. Only God...
I am deeply grateful... and deeply humbled.
Now that the hard work of raising funds is over, the even harder work of preparing and waiting starts. I am deeply grateful for the privilege of leading an amazing committee of people that God has called together for this very purpose, for such a time as this.
I saw this Instagram photo by Bianca Juarez Olthoff today and it drove home for me the significance of what our church family has committed to doing --- that is to bring these two families into the safety embrace of our country and our community, a safe place that we so often take for granted or don't even think about. As the caption on this Instagram photo so eloquently puts it, "It was nothing to me, but everything to her."
A photo posted by Bianca Juarez Olthoff (@biancaolthoff) on
As we wait and prepare, please pray with us... for these two precious families that have been matched to us as they wait for all the requirements to be completed for them to be travel-ready. Please also pray for our committee members as we start to plan and prepare, that we will keep these words in mind:
Place your trust in the Eternal; rely on Him completely; never depend upon your own ideas and inventions. Give Him the credit for everything you accomplish, and He will smooth out and straighten the road that lies ahead. (Proverbs 3:5-6, The Voice)
This is a man who “fears the Lord, who greatly delights in His commandments.” (Psalm 112)
Each day, I thank my Heavenly Father for blessing me with this man, to do life with and to serve Him together.
I honestly don't remember a time when I didn't know hubby. Our families have known each other since we were children and since he is six years older than me, I don't remember not knowing him! Isn't that awesome?!?
We promised each other forever almost 25 years ago now and I can honestly say that who I am today, this better version of myself, is no doubt because of God's great love for me... and packaged within that great love is this gift of a wonderful man whom He has given me to walk this thing called life together.
... a marriage made in Heaven is one where a man and a woman become more richly themselves together than the chances are either of them could ever have managed to become alone. ~ Frederick Buechner.
I couldn't have asked for a better life partner...
God is gracious and He truly gives good gifts, #1000gifts --- "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:17)
You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up to more than I can be.
When I am down and, oh, my soul, so weary;
When troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.
There is no life - no life without its hunger;
Each restless heart beats so imperfectly;
But when you come and I am filled with wonder,
Sometimes, I think I glimpse eternity.
This boy's birthday always signals the end of summer for us. Born on the evening of Labour Day fifteen years ago, we always celebrate his birthday on this long weekend before the start of school.
This year, it's no different. Tonight, we will celebrate at his favourite restaurant --- one we head to just once a year on this very special occasion.
A photo posted by Aimee Esparaz (@mama2greatkids) on
Yet, somehow the end-of-summer this year feels different than previous ones. I'm not sure if it's because this girl is off to university and classes started yesterday, before the Labour Day long weekend... or if it's something else.
A photo posted by Aimee Esparaz (@mama2greatkids) on
Sadly, I do think it's something else. My heart seems heavy as this summer draws to a close. It's been an eventful summer... both in our family's life and in world news.
This summer brought us to Guatemala where we came face-to-face with our Compassion daughter, Esperanzawhose story unfolded not quite the way we expected. We came face-to-face with young girls who have been forced into child labour or experienced physical and/or sexual abuse whose lives are being restored at Oasis Girls' Home. We stood stunned, speechless, frozen... gazing at the scene in front of us, with a multitude of vultures circling above our heads. A scene so surreal it was as if it was playing on a TV screen... right in front of us is a massive pit known as the Guatemala City Dump with many, many, many people, including children, working and scavenging and l-i-v-i-n-g in it.
One month after returning from Guatemala, the scene still haunts me today. The only thing that is a balm to my heart is knowing that God is at work in that place through the ministry of Compassion International.
Our world is broken, very broken. We come home to atrocious news of leaked videos about body organs from babies being sold, to shocking news of leaked data from an infidelity site, its main office located right here in our city, that proves Christians not being immune to it.
We are faced with a sudden and unexpected possible change in our family routine when God calls us to that oh-so-familiar outside-our-comfort-zone place where He seems to always call for our obedience, our yes!
We receive news of childhood friends dying, both mine and hubby's... gone to soon, way too young.
Our world is broken, very broken. We are inundated with election news, with reports of a global financial crisis, and with trivial social media posts on one's political stance when in other news, there's this report of ISIS enshrining a theology of rape, a news article that had me in an ugly cry before I even finished reading the first paragraph.
We were inundated with social media posts of people up in arms about a dead lion when in other news, there's a dead baby who has washed ashore in Turkey because the world has ignored the worst refugee crisis we've seen since World War II. We knew the name of the lion faster than we found out what that sweet little boy's name is. His name is Aylan Kurdi.
No wonder my heart seems heavy as this summer draws to a close. It just wants to scream, "Lord Jesus, have mercy! Lord Jesus, heal our land."
... if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. ~ 2 Chronicles 7:14.
It just wants to pray this prayer of confession...
But as this summer comes to a close...
My heart, though heavy, still dares to hope --- "Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. (Lamentations 3:21-23)"
His faithful love is evident when, on her very first day as an International Development Studies student at the University of Toronto, my girl pens this letter to little Aylan Kurdi, even before we found out what his name is... and I am one proud mama, proud of this young lady and of her brave and bold words.
Oh, I squirm while saying this to you - we've been living mindless lives instead of loving you until you're simply able to live.
We've filled churches on Sundays while you and your people filled boats and sailed straight to death - and are we really being the Church or just filling steepled buildings hollow?
Because we're full of empty good intentions and real-sounding excuses when we should be full of the love of Christ.
And sweet boy, this is my apology, this is my outcry, but mostly this is my confession.
His mercies are evident when, on this his fifteen birthday, my boy is choosing to make a birthday donation to help little boys just like Aylan Kurdi who, together with their families, are currently seeking refuge in refugee camps and to make a similar donation to help our sister church with the sponsorship of a refugee family so that they can come live in Canada... and I am one proud mama, proud of this young man and of his heart of gold, one that beats in sync with God's.
No wonder my heavy heart still dares to hope as this summer draws to a close.
We are home... from that land of majestic volcanoes, lush rain-forests and ancient Mayan ruins and from being face-to-face with our Compassion daughter, Esperanza.
These beautiful horses took us to the peak of Pacaya Volcano.
When your desire is to see, to know, to touch, to understand — with an openness of mind and heart — that is a pilgrimage. And like all pilgrimages, you cannot remain the same at the end of such a journey. Pilgrimages lead you to reflect on your own identity and purpose.
A pilgrimage leads to changed and restored relationships. It’s a result of not visiting the poor, but visiting with the poor.
Visiting with the poor becomes another expression of the love of God and of community. And this idea is deeply ingrained in God’s desire and gift for wholeness.
We are beyond excited to hop on that plane. I have a feeling that Guatemala will take a hold of our hearts in a very special way.
We will meet our Esperanza and we will witness esperanza... hope.
I am excited, actually beyond excited. Yet, to be honest... I am, at the same time, scared of the many unknowns and of how our hearts will be broken afresh.
But I am keeping my eyes on Jesus because He is our blessed esperanza and because broken is the most blessed you can be... and I am looking forward to that wild joy that will follow this yes!
Little did I know just how true those words would ring in the coming days. A few days later, just one week before our departure date, I got word from Compassion Canada about some news they received from Compassion Guatemala.
Our Esperanza, at age 17, is with child, was recently married, and will be leaving the Compassion program effectively immediately. This visit will be our final goodbye. This is not how I imagined the story to unfold. Aren't we supposed to still have a-year-and-a-bit before Esperanza turns 18 and graduates from the Compassion program to continue our sponsorship of her? Isn't this visit supposed to be the start of cultivating an even deeper relationship with our Esperanza before she launches into adulthood?
Everything about this story's unexpected unfolding just seems to be wrong and unfair.
But I quickly snapped out of my pity-party when God reminded me that... these summer pilgrimages of ours aren't at all about our comfort and our preferences, it is all about our role in God's story of redemption --- His desire and gift for wholeness, for us and for all we come in contact with.
A few days before our departure, God impressed this verse from Isaiah 52:7 on my heart --- “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the messenger who brings good news, the good news of peace and salvation, the news that the God of Israel reigns!”
A photo posted by Aimee Esparaz (@mama2greatkids) on
How fitting as Guatemala is a country of beautiful mountains! Side note: My very sore legs sure were not impressed with me at the end of each day during our trip. ;)
With those words from Isaiah 52:7 in mind, we knew we needed to go with hearts ready "to see, to know, to touch, to understand --- with an openness of mind and heart" --- because that is what a pilgrimage is.
Visit Days, July 30 and 31...
These days couldn't come fast enough. They were smack right in the middle of our 10 days in Guatemala. We left Guatemala City very early in the morning. After 8 hours of driving through winding mountain roads, yes... e-i-g-h-t long hours!, we arrived at GU-996, Palestina Child Development Center, in the mountainous community of Chisec, Alta Verapaz, during the mid-afternoon.
A large group of children lined a pathway towards the church building to welcome us. It was the most awesome welcome I've ever experienced!
This Compassion project serves an indigenous Mayan community whose people speak the Queqchi dialect and whose highest education level is Grade 6. It is run by the local church, Iglesia Bautista Palestina, led by Pastor Javier and Project Director Martin. Pastor Javier's vision for this Compassion project is "to show the way of truth in Jesus, teaching registered boys and girls how to generate income for their families." They have almost 300 registered Compassion kids!
Esperanza, her family and Pastor Javier only speak Queqchi. Project Director Martin speaks both Queqchi and Spanish. Our host from Compassion Guatemala, Ruth, speaks Spanish and English (very good English, in fact!) and we only speak English (plus understand a few basic words in Spanish). All that to say, there was a four-way translation going on which made for a very interesting way to communicate.
We came to the end of the children-lined pathway and there was our Esperanza. Also there was her mother Doña Maria and her husband of one month, Hernan. Hernan is 18, just a year older than her.
Everyone enjoyed a lunch of Pollo Campero and Domino's Pizza which we brought up from the City of Coban for them. Coban is a two-and-a-half-hour drive away so these luxuries are virtually inaccessible for the people in this community especially since the bus fare to go there and back is $10 per person and the average income is $3 a day! We would later learn that Esperanza has only been to Coban three times in her entire life!
We chatted over lunch and as I learned more about their way of life, I realized that when we are willing "to see, to know, to touch, to understand --- with an openness of mind and heart" --- and when we don't overlay our first-world template on everything, we start to see things in a very different light.
Esperanza belongs to an indigenous Mayan community. They still largely live a typical Mayan life --- they are farmers, most are not formally educated, the majority start a family at a very early age. Esperanza's grandmother, in her mid-60s, is already a great-grandmother to a teenage girl!
My first-world mind couldn't fathom how this ancient way of life is still in existence today. But my first-world heart silently longed for the simplicity that this way of life seem to offer. Though I was pleasantly surprised to see that our Esperanza owns a cell phone! :)
These two young women... their worlds couldn't be more opposite from each other. Yet both are infinitely, equally and uniquely loved by our Heavenly Father.
So... while being married and having a baby at age 17 might be foreign to me as a first-world citizen, it is quite normal to them in this Mayan way of life.
While being married and having a baby at age 17 would seemingly spell disaster for a teenager in this first-world which we call home,Esperanza is merely entering the logical next step of life as is expected of her in this Mayan community which she calls home. Logical?To Esperanza, yes!
When you are only fluent in an ancient Mayan dialect that is only understood within your own Mayan community and when you don't know very much Spanish...
When you've earned just a Grade 4 education at age 17, even though it already is much better than those who didn't even get any formal education...
When you know your future is to live and work in this community which you call home...
When all of the above is true, the next logical step for you is to start a family.
Yes, even at age 17. And this is where the beauty of Compassion's ministry comes in: Even though Esperanza is now leaving the Compassion program, the church will continue to be there for her as she starts a family. It will be just like she never left the program. Her support network remains intact. The difference truly is Jesus!
After lunch, we had the opportunity to tour the facilities at this Compassion project. The children were in their classrooms being taught Bible truths, learning some Spanish, singing, dancing. The facilities are honestly the poorest I have seen in all of our visits to Compassion projects... but the joy evident on the children's faces and the enthusiasm of the teachers truly exude Jesus!
In fact, this region has the most extreme poverty we've seen in all of our travels. We were told that this region is known as the forgotten region... forgotten by the government, forgotten by humanitarian agencies. Thankfully, not forgotten by Compassion International!
The Maya Q’eqchi’ in Alta Verapaz suffer some of the worst poverty and health conditions in the country. Nearly 90% of the very poor are indigenous, subsistence farmers living on mountainous terrain.
Then, we were invited to visit Esperanza's family home. I must say that it also is the poorest of all the homes we've seen of our sponsored children. Yet, the sense of family is so strong. Everyone gathered around when we arrived, several generations of family.
Grandma was boiling corn on the fire to make tortilla with. Father was just home from the farm. Sisters and brothers milled about. Children and babies played together. Like a little community in and of itself!
My boy was thrilled to be able to ride in the back of this pick-up truck on the way to Esperanza's house!
It is Esperanza's hope that she and Hernan can build a house right there in her family's homestead so that he can help farm their land. Her homestead is also more accessible from the main road. Hernan's family lives in an even more remote area where one has to cross a river to get home so it is a less ideal place to raise a family. It is our desire to help Esperanza's hope become a reality --- "a mutual embrace of life as it can be." Time flew and it was soon time for us to leave as we still had a two-and-a-half-hour drive back to Coban where we were staying the night.
I will always remember the goodbye hug that I exchanged with Esperanza. She clutched my shirt so tight and wouldn't let go. It truly felt like a last goodbye...
Hubby took this opportunity to counsel Hernan to love and take care of our Esperanza. That exchange made my heart smile.
A photo posted by Aimee Esparaz (@mama2greatkids) on
As we gathered around to pray, as is the custom of this community everyone prayed out loud all at once. It was such a powerful moment, beautifully sacred, brought me to tears, like we were on holy ground --- "a mutual embrace of life as it can be."
As I went to sleep that night at the hotel in Coban, I couldn't help but be deeply grateful that God orchestrated to have us say our final goodbye to Esperanza in person. Not a final letter, but an actual face-to-face, skin-to-skin goodbye.
As our Compassion host, Ruth, so eloquently said, "I firmly believe that Esperanza’s life will not be the same and that there is a higher purpose for you being able to meet her."
So very true. And... I believe that our lives won't be the same either --- "a mutual embrace of life as it can be." As I laid on that hotel bed, utterly exhausted, physically and emotionally, from the day's events, my heart was overwhelmed with joy --- and I smiled, realizing... ah, yes... this is that wild joy that follows our yes to God!
And like all pilgrimages, you cannot remain the same at the end of such a journey. Pilgrimages lead you to reflect on your own identity and purpose.
The next day, we had a couple more hours with Esperanza as we arranged for her, Hernan, Doña Maria and Juan, a Compassion project staff, to come into the City of Coban to join us for breakfast at McDonald's! Can you believe she's never eaten at McDonald's before?!? Perhaps that's a good thing, don't you think?!? ;)
After breakfast we took them to Paiz, a store owned by Walmart, so that we could get Esperanza some groceries. Very soon after, it was time for the actual final goodbye...
Words aren't adequate to describe that final goodbye... it was like a piece of my heart stayed behind there with Esperanza. Imagine leaving your pregnant teenager knowing you won't ever see her again nor will you know what her baby looks like. Yeah, that.
But it was there, as I tearfully and fervently waved goodbye, that I saw esperanza.Yes... I saw hope.
Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. ~ Lamentations 3:21-23.
Because we serve a God who is always good and we are all His beloved. He loves Esperanza infinitely more than I ever can. He holds her in the palm of His hand... and she knows that, largely because of Compassion's ministry in her life through the local church since she was just a little girl.
As she walked towards the store's exit, I watched her go. She turned around to wave as often as she could. As she disappeared around the corner, she waved one last time and tears started to fall from my eyes and my heart was simultaneously overwhelmed with deep gratitude...
Because, the difference truly is Jesus!
At the Compassion Guatemala office.
With our Compassion host, Ruth.
She served with the love of Jesus, going beyond what her "job" entailed and did it with such obvious joy!
With Compassion Guatemala's Country Director, Jose Carlos Prem.
Friends, will you sponsor a child with Compassion today?
A photo posted by Aimee Esparaz (@mama2greatkids) on
Until next time, Guatemala! God has used this beautiful country and its people to impact our family in a very profound way. I think we're going to soon be looking for another Guatemalan girl to sponsor, a Compassion sister for our Esperanza!
Compassion is a command, an act of worship, a song of thanks to Him.
