The last 27 + months have been filled with excitement, nervousness, insecurities, frustrations, laughter, struggles and successes, love and anger, family and friendships; but above all, gratitude.
I cannot begin to understand why or how God ever thought I was equipped or prepared to be a Finca Missionary. When I applied I naively thought I was ready, maybe even qualified, to be a missionary. But any Finca Missionary can tell you if not in the first 24 hours of arriving, for sure the first week, doubts start to roll around in your head. You say to yourself “I can’t speak Spanish. I don’t know how to use a pila. I have to run a clinic (or XYZ job), share one bathroom with 15 other women, and learn all 39 names of the Finca children?” It is no small task.
I would remind myself of the reflection my class had in Antigua about Jesus asking Peter three times if he loved Him, which was also echoed by Kate in our last community retreat. Peter answered yes all three times and in the end Jesus told him, then feed my sheep. Just like Peter God did not ask me before coming if I could speak Spanish proficiently. He didn’t ask if I could be catracha (Honduran), or if I could perform as a physician. He simply asked if I loved him. And if my answer was yes my only task, like Peter, was to feed his sheep; love his people. Again no small task.
Prayer took on a whole new meaning for me as I tried to love God’s people. God became my wing-man as I stepped out into the madrugada for emergencies, headed to work in the mornings, attempted to speak to house parents or kids, and as I tried to ignore the desire to split when I got embarrassed or uncomfortable. Each morning I would give my day to God on the one condition that He’d accompany me and provide me with all I needed to complete the day. And each night I would give thanks as Mary Kate and I asked each other “What is one thing you were grateful for today?”
Poco a poco Honduras and the Finca became what I called home. I was no longer putting my life on hold for 2 years of service, it was and still is my life, actively being lived out. A veil had been lifted and I saw things for what they really were. My community became my second family knowing me better than my extended family. My life was intertwined and dependent on all those in the Finca: children, house parents and tias, sores, and other missionaries. The true God was shown to me, not the one I had been taught about in Sunday school or had ignorantly prayed to in college, but the God to be experienced.
I could easily see God and God’s love in the children and in the way they easily and freely gave of it to others. I experienced God when Jose Manuel drew himself, his tia and all the boys who live in house 4 when asked to draw a picture of his family at Tema. When Elena showed off the gusano (worm) I pulled out of her head to all the houses. When Juan Carlos and all the house 5 boys take turns holding their house mom’s new baby, their sister, and when Seidy gives me unconditional hugs every day I experience God. When I see Nolvia and Julitza dance at the graduation baile as if no one is watching them and when Darwin takes 30 minutes to tell me the detailed history of the dogs at the Finca, I experience God. I see God when Carlos gives his churros to the guys on the streets of Ceiba, and in Belgia’s desire to be a religious sister. Struggling with Miriam to finish her math homework, or Roni saying “thank you for the pills Deirdre” as I leave his house in the morning, God reveals himself to me. I hear God when Daniel tells me “Every time I look at this ugly scar I will think of you Deirdre” (from the 10 stitches I put in his leg a year ago) or when Joel asks “Why do you love me?”
There are endless examples of God manifested in the Children of the Farm. It is not just nice things the children do for others but is them loving one another; them loving God’s people. And through these children all that I had taken at surface value I now could see the deeper meaning. God doesn’t just love me, he LOVES me! And that often was the “one thing” I was grateful for at the end of the day: a child showing me how to love and allowing me to see others as well as myself as God sees them.
With 4 weeks left at the Farm I still do not know why God thought I was worthy enough to enter the Finca’s life. I often feel I have learned and gained more than I have given. But I do know how grateful I am that I was called here and that my “yes” included more than I ever could have imagined. So today I am grateful for the opportunity to live as a Finca Missionary.
