Psalm 25

¹ In you, Lord my God,
    I put my trust.

² I trust in you;
    do not let me be put to shame,
    nor let my enemies triumph over me.
³ No one who hopes in you
    will ever be put to shame,
but shame will come on those
    who are treacherous without cause.

⁴ Show me your ways, Lord,
    teach me your paths.
⁵ Guide me in your truth and teach me,
    for you are God my Savior,
    and my hope is in you all day long.
⁶ Remember, Lord, your great mercy and love,
    for they are from of old.
⁷ Do not remember the sins of my youth
    and my rebellious ways;
according to your love remember me,
    for you, Lord, are good.

⁸ Good and upright is the Lord;
    therefore he instructs sinners in his ways.
⁹ He guides the humble in what is right
    and teaches them his way.
¹⁰ All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful
    toward those who keep the demands of his covenant.
¹¹ For the sake of your name, Lord,
    forgive my iniquity, though it is great.

¹² Who, then, are those who fear the Lord?
    He will instruct them in the ways they should choose.
¹³ They will spend their days in prosperity,
    and their descendants will inherit the land.
¹⁴ The Lord confides in those who fear him;
    he makes his covenant known to them.
¹⁵ My eyes are ever on the Lord,
    for only he will release my feet from the snare.

¹⁶ Turn to me and be gracious to me,
    for I am lonely and afflicted.
¹⁷ Relieve the troubles of my heart
    and free me from my anguish.
¹⁸ Look on my affliction and my distress
    and take away all my sins.
¹⁹ See how numerous are my enemies
    and how fiercely they hate me!

²⁰ Guard my life and rescue me;
    do not let me be put to shame,
    for I take refuge in you.
²¹ May integrity and uprightness protect me,
    because my hope, Lord, is in you.

²² Deliver Israel, O God,
    from all their troubles!

When I first became a Christian and actually started reading the Bible (not just looking up certain verses), I began by starting with verses I knew and reading from there. Having not been raised in the Church, I admittedly didn't know much( and actually understood a lot less) but one verse I knew was Psalm 23. I've been to many funerals in my life, so I knew the “funeral” verse by heart. So, I started reading the book of Psalms. When I got to Psalm 25, something clicked.

As I read Psalm 25, the words spoke to me. The urgent request, the plea of the psalm surrounds asking God for His guidance, for His direction. As a new believer, I struggled with how to act as a Christian, how to “be” a believer. Having not been raised in the church, I felt very much lacking. I felt like there were many things that I didn’t know that other Christians knew. Even more than that, not just knowing how a Christian is to act, think and behave, but to know what God’s purpose is for my life. What role I play in His grand plan, how I was gifted and how to use those gifts in service to the Kingdom.

Some years later I was having lunch with my grandmother at her house. On her kitchen table she has, and has for as long as I can remember, her Bible that she has used for years. Now, I love looking at this Bible, and always have,  because every page is thick with notes that she has taken over the years, insights that God has showed her and just some general notes about our family. On that particular day, her bible was opened to Psalms, so given my new found relationship to Psalm 25, I carefully turned through the well-worn pages until I got to it. As I started to read through the Psalm, I was somewhat struck when I saw my father’s name and a date written alongside the verses. I asked my grandmother about this, and she proceeded to tell me the story of a letter that my father had written to her while he was in basic training, many years ago, and how in that letter he spoke about his struggles and how he relied upon the words of Psalm 25 to help him get through.

I was quite frankly shocked by this.

I never thought of my father as a religious man, I never heard him speak of God; in fact religion was never really a part of my life growing up. We may have gone to church with my grandparents on Easter or mother’s day, but that’s about it. 

My father and I were never really close. I tended to think, act and in generally be more like my mom than my dad, and It became fairly clear that I wasn’t his favorite. I knew he loved me, and we got along well enough, but I never had the relationship with him that I would have liked.

My father had many flaws, made many bad decisions that had huge impact on our family. At times I hated him for the things he was doing, the pain he caused. I wanted nothing at all to be like him and yet, deep inside, I felt that somehow I was a failure because I wasn't what he wanted in a son.

As I grew older I tried to change myself, become more like the son that I thought he wanted, a son he would really love. Still, despite my best efforts, we still never had the relationship that I would have liked. In too short a time, he was gone and I was left with a hollow feeling inside.

Perhaps that is why I have struggled sometimes with truly comprehending the Father’s love for me, for believing that the Father in heaven could genuinely love me when my own, earthly father didn't. Now, please hear me, I don’t mean to complain or whine. I know there are many, many people in the world that had much worse childhoods than I, and many grew up with either no father or a much worse father than I had. I’m just telling my story, speaking my heart. No more, no less.

Every time I pray, I always ask God to show me His way, enlighten me in what He wants me to do and how I can serve Him and the Kingdom. Show me how to be a good, Christian man. How to be a man of God. A man after God’s own heart.

Throughout the many paths that my life has taken me on, I have had many highs and lows. I have known great joy and peace in His presence, and I have felt crushing despair and loneliness. Truthfully, as I have grown in my Christian walk and my relationship with the Lord, I know that God is always there, and the times that I feel truly down and alone, it is because I have wandered far from the path that He has laid before me. I don’t know why I go astray and take the path that causes me pain. The curse of free will, I suppose.

I pray that someday I will learn to stay away from the paths that cause pain. I will learn to ignore the pains in my heart and focus my thoughts upward and outward. Someday…

Until then, “Show me Your ways, Lord; teach me Your paths.” And if at all possible, when I start to go too far astray, please Lord, feel free to kick me back in line. Amen!

perscriptions

One of my many tasks here, as part of my job in creating and maintaining inventory is to not only log all of our medicines in to a database, but to also keep track of all of the medications that we dispense on a daily basis.

This doesn't seem like too big of a task, until you realize that on average we see between 50-60 patients every day, and that each patient  is generally prescribed at least 5 different medications (as well as items used for breathing treatments, injections, etc.) and it quickly becomes obvious just how big a task this becomes. To make this task even harder, not only do I have to decipher hand written prescription slips from our doctors, but of course everything is written in Spanish, which adds to the confusion :-)

This involves many long hours, peering at papers through my newly needed reading glasses, translating page after page of prescriptions and entering them into a database. While this is necessary for our inventory system, keeping track of what leaves the system on a daily basis, it’s also integral for gaining a good solid average of exactly what and how much of everything that we use in an average week. All of which will help us as we move forward, working towards ordering and maintaining enough stock to ensure we always have what we need, when we need it.

Granted, this isn’t a very fun or glamorous  part of being a Missionary, but I think that if nothing else, it is a good example of how everything we do, no matter how seemingly insignificant, if done in the name of the King can be used for His ultimate glory and to further the Kingdom!

Perita

I’d like to introduce you to my new friend, Perita. She showed up at the mission several months ago, apparently abandoned, sickly and malnourished. I began sharing my lunch with her, bought some medication to get her a little healthier, and generally just started taking care of her.

First off, I have to explain about her name. I was going for the name “Perrita”, basically translated into little dog or puppy, but since I am unable to roll my R’s, she became “Perita” or translated to mean little pear. Everyone here believes that I named her that based off the fact that she is close to the same color as pears that you can buy here in the market. Either way works, I guess. Perita doesn’t seem to have a preference one way or another.

Perita: Hard at work...

While I was home for my nieces wedding, I was able to pick up some more medication and some other items for her, and she is now doing well and living behind the clinic, next to the containers where I am working. I have to admit it’s nice to be greeted every morning by Perita, my hope is that as she gets a little bigger she will help to provide a little extra security for the clinic at night, on top of providing a little companionship for me as I work :-)

Counting...

The majority of the medications we dispense to our patients are given in standards dosages, so in order to make things easier for the Pharmacy staff and the patients, we pre-bag most of the medicines that we prescribe before they get into the pharmacy, and that’s where I come in. Taking multiple bottles of up to 1000 tablets and separating them into individual bags of 10 or 15 pills is a lot of work, but is very beneficial in the long run.

This tends to be quite a long and tedious process, counting out the pills, individually bagging them along with a small piece of paper with the medicine name and dosing instructions and finally tying the bags and adding them into the inventory. Considering we buy most of our medicines in bulk, there are always plenty of medicines to be bagged. While we have been blessed by several of our short term teams that have helped with this process in the evenings while they are here, a lot of these I take care of myself, as homework. J

Generally, I spend most of my evenings and weekend hours at my house, counting and bagging medicines, trying to keep up with our demand, as well as creating, copying and cutting all of the little instruction papers for the bagging. It’s a lot of work, but has done a lot to increase the speed and accuracy of the pharmacy, as well as helping with the inventory system in general (It’s a lot easier to count bags of pills then to open and count every individual pill in big bottles).

Looking forward towards next year, my hope is that more of our short term teams will be willing to help us out in this fashion. Just one of the many, seemingly little things that groups can do that can make a load of difference here on the field.  

Estantes

My calling to Honduras and to serve alongside the His Eyes ministry has begun, and primarily I am working to help create and organize an inventory system that will help to keep track of all of the supplies, donations, tools, etc. that are a part of the mission as a whole. The first part of this system will begin with organizing all of the medicines and medical supplies for our soon to be expanding clinic. This is rather a large task, so I am attempting to tackle it from several different directions at the same time.

Just outside of the clinic are two, forty foot shipping containers that have been earmarked as storage for everything clinic related, and that is where I have started. My

first order of business has been to clean out the containers, trying to sort and purge as I go, in preparation for the new system I will create. We have added an internal steel support structure to the containers themselves, in order to reinforce them for planned future construction on top of the containers, as well as added insulation to the ceilings 
of the containers to help regulate their internal temperature.

We have bought a lot of lumber and I have been busy building shelves throughout the interior of the first container, which will be primarily used to warehouse and inventory all of our medicines for the clinic. The ultimate goal is to have a better way to store and track our medicine usage, making it easier for us to eventually buy in bulk, helping to save the clinic money and at the same time making sure we always have what we need when we need it. I have also been spending a lot of time working with Marlen, our clinic staffer who has ran the pharmacy for many years, learning the names of all our medicines and trying to understand how the pharmacy is currently working and ways we can make it run smoother in the future.

The second container will be used to hold larger equipment and supplies for the clinic, as well as Orthotic supplies, glasses, medical files, etc. The end goal is to have a place for everything and everything in its place, all organized and inventoried so that in all ways we are insuring the best stewardship of all of the resources that God has blessed, and continues to bless us with.

I have also been pleased to spend some time talking with all of our clinic employees, learning more about what they do every day and what equipment they need to help make their work easier and run smoother. I will be home for a few days in September to attend the wedding of my niece Paige, and while I’m home I hope to spend some time at the F.A.M.E. warehouse in Indianapolis, earmarking some furniture and equipment (as well as medicine and other medical supplies) that will be loaded into a container headed here in October.

In my spare time, I have been happy to help with some minor repairs around the clinic and mission as a whole. In all things, I am excited to be here and to serve however I can, helping the mission in whatever they need, and in all things serving the Kingdom as He has called me to, following as He leads.

La Casa de Clark

La Casa de Clark

A big part of my first month after moving to Honduras has been spent in finding, furnishing and getting everything going to have a place to live. This has been a different experience for me, while serving in Haiti I lived on the campus, within the walls of the mission itself. While this made the transition to Haiti much more convenient and allowed me to be much more readily available whenever problems arose at the mission, the flipside to that was that I never truly felt like I had a home, a place to call my own.

Soon after I arrived here, I spent some time with Oscar looking at some houses that he had already scouted out for me. As soon as I saw this little house I knew it was the one. It was plenty big enough for me, clean, secure, on a nice quiet street and best of all, fit within my budget! Soon thereafter I met with the owner of the house, signed a 1 year contract, and I had myself a home!

The next step was to start trying to find all of the necessary stuff needed to create a household, made just a little more difficult for me in that:

1.     My Spanish isn’t very good at all

2.     I don’t know where anything is here

3.     No vehicle to get where I needed to go (even if I knew where it was)

American & Honduran style clothes washing facilities :-)

But, thanks to my wonderful friends Jana, Oscar & Felipe I was able to not only get what I needed to start furnishing my house, but also was able to take care of the other needed stuff (such as opening bank accounts, setting up internet for my house, buying a sim card for my phone so I could use it here, etc.). The only thing missing was actual furniture, which the mission was kind enough to let me borrow until I can buy my own stuff. Fortunately I have been able to pick up a few pieces of furniture from a friend of mine, Laurie Matherne, who is leaving Honduras after several years serving here and is heading home to the states. A full size bed, a nice set of wicker chairs for the living room, a small table (just the right size for my house) and in a few weeks, a stove! Not to mention a bunch of odds and ends that she has blessed me with. Her generosity has helped me make big strides in setting up house and settling in here, and I can’t possibly thank her and all my friends at the mission enough for what they have done to help me!

I also was able to borrow a sewing machine from the mission and was even able to sew drapes for all my windows! They may not be the straightest or the prettiest, but they definitely do the job!

So, now I am almost completely settled in, other than a few small things that I am keeping my eye out for here (or that I may bring back in when I am home in September for my niece, Paige’s wedding. Either way, I love my little home here and am excited to now be able to focus more on my calling, serving the ministry of His Eyes, the people of Honduras and the Kingdom of our amazing God!

(By the way, I do have a spare bedroom, just in case anyone would like to come visit sometime J )

A time for everything...

A Time for Everything

”There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

    a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
    a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
    a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
    a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
    a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
    a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
    a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

What do workers gain from their toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.  He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”

~ Ecclesiastes 3:1-11 NIV

“Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" ~ Green Day

Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don't ask why
It's not a question, but a lesson learned in time

It's something unpredictable, but in the end is right,
I hope you had the time of your life.

////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Since my first short term trip here in 2008, Honduras has always held a special place in my heart. It is here that I first saw true need, recognized utter poverty and felt the awesome impact that the love of Christ can have in the darker places in this world.

FCC Brazil Mission Trip ~ 2008

It is also the place where I felt Gods calling and direction for me to serve Him and his Kingdom here on earth. Since that time I have tried to live my life as he directs and although I trip and fall on an all to regular basis, His unfailing love and grace have never failed, and I know that I am blessed beyond measure (and beyond reason) to continue to serve.

From the moment I got here I have been welcomed with open arms and hearts by everyone at the mission. In my first month here I have found a place to live, furnished it and created a household. I’ve opened bank accounts, applied for my resident visa, been re-learning Spanish (right now, the Spanish I used to know has been largely overwritten by the Kreyole I’ve used the last two years), and just learning the day to day rituals of living here.

I’ve been excited to begin my work at the mission, helping to organize everything and help out however I can. I’m looking forward to whatever the next weeks, months and years may bring. In all things, I seek only to answer God’s call, to serve Him and His Kingdom however He directs.

In all things, in all ways, I will always remain in His service.