What You Don't Know Can't Hurt You: Let's Get Started

One day, a few years ago, my friend and I decided to take a walk in the picturesque city of Antigua, Guatemala. We strolled out of the house we were staying at and walked down to the city square, eager to see more of the mountaintop town. Enjoying all of the foreign sights and smells, I noticed a small girl selling beaded necklaces to anyone who looked interested. Anyone who has spent time in third-world countries is familiar with people selling all sorts of random objects anywhere they set up; a few days later on the same trip, I bought a carved wooden flute out of a bus window during a traffic jam caused by a cow laying the road. However, there was something about this little girl that caught my eye.

She was tiny, this girl. She barely came to my hip. More than her small stature, there was such desperation in her face as she called out to the passer-bys, “Necklaces! Beaded necklaces!” That was all she said, and small as she was, most of the people ignored her for the louder, more professional sellers in the same square. She kept shouting, even though her voice was hoarse. Of the few people who noticed her, one or two took pity and bought necklaces. She hoarded the coins they gave her eagerly, stuffing them in her pockets before glancing around to see if anyone was watching her.

Maybe because she seemed so desperate, maybe because she was alone, I decided to talk to her. When she sat down, I took a seat beside her, my friend obediently following me. And when I asked her why she seemed so desperate, her answer was simple.

“If I don’t sell, I don’t eat. I’m hungry.”

Her name was Rosa. During the day she sold the necklaces that her mother made at night. What little money they gain was spent on buying more materials and feeding their small family. Since her father had left a few years ago, making and selling necklaces had become her family’s main source of income, and with a sick baby and an aging father to care for, Rosa knew her mother was barely to make ends meet.

Rosa was the first child to tell me her story on that trip, but she wasn’t the last. During my time in Guatemala, I was inundated with children and the tales they had to tell me. It was through their eyes that I was forced to look at myself, and I didn’t like what I saw.

I was rich, selfish, and worst of all, ignorant. My worldview had never been challenged before coming to Guatemala. I was secure in the knowledge that everything would be all right, that God would take care of ‘poor people,’ who for me had never really been anything more than an abstract thought, anyways. You see, I had adopted that attitude that so many of us have: I knew but I didn’t know.

I knew there were children starving in the world, but I didn’t know what it was like to talk to a hungry child.

I knew there was violence in the world, but I didn’t know the death-grip of a child’s hand as they explained to me how they had been tormented.

I knew there was rape in the world, but I didn’t know the feeling of holding a thirteen-year-old rape victim’s tiny, perfect baby in my arms.

And what I didn’t know couldn’t hurt me.

Caring is a hard thing to do. Apathy demands nothing of us, and willful ignorance even less. But to care; to see a need in the world and be challenged to do something about it, to play a part in its resolution, however small-that’s so difficult. But it’s time for individuals, churches, and nations to take a stand for a world that’s hurtling off the edge of a cliff. It’s time for us to care.

In this series, I will be talking about some of the global issues facing children in this day and age. I’m sure I’ll be a wreck through most of it, because children mess me up. I will be trying to paint a picture for you of what it’s like for those children who are trapped in lives that they can’t escape, be it hunger, slavery, abuse, or that ever-present beast, poverty, as well as giving information on organizations that are doing their part to help. I’m not going to make you do anything; I’m not going to guilt trip you into sponsoring a child or sending money to Africa. All I’m trying to do is make you care.

Because I know that you will do the rest.

What you don’t know can’t hurt you. Before I talked to that little girl, I was happy in my ignorance. I had no reason to find out more about what was happening to children in the world, and no intention of working with them full-time, either. My ignorance wasn’t hurting me.

What you don’t know can’t hurt you.

But it will certainly hurt them.

Let it Go

I’m going to tell you a story. This story is probably about me, but could just as easily be about someone else-that’s not the point. This is a story about dreams, and obedience. This is a story about falling in love, and eventually falling out again.

This is a story about letting go.

The first time they saw each other, they both noticed someone else. She didn’t think he was very smart. He didn’t think she was very attractive. And then, they got to know each other. Suddenly, he was a lot smarter than she had given him credit for. Suddenly, he started seeing beautiful things about her everywhere, and started talking to her more just to look at her face.

Suddenly, they both fell hard in love.

Was it real? It felt real. All of the symptoms from any teen love song were there: obsessive thinking, foolish looks on their faces, empty promises. What else could they need? More than that, though, they knew. Because they had prayed. And God had answered-one of them.

Since she had her answer from God, she could just sit back and relax, knowing that there was a divine stamp of approval on this blossoming relationship. Maybe she let herself get a little too emotionally involved; so what? It would all work out in the end-God had told her so.

In the meantime, he prayed, too, and didn’t ever get an answer. But here was this girl who seemed interested and had assured him that this was meant to be, so it seemed okay. Well, okay until he started talking to another girl, and began to think about her pretty face instead of our heroine’s.

You can see where I’m going here, right? Because like I said, this is not a unique story. And while I’m over-simplifying things, it’s a look at the way Christian relationships sometimes evolve.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m all for Christian relationships. I believe that God is interested in every area of my life, and that He has a plan for my (someday) marriage that will reflect His glory. I’m fully on board with that. But, you see, there’s more to this story that you don’t know about.

Once upon a time, a girl fell in love with a boy who said he loved her back. His actions spoke louder than his words though, and finally she had to turn away from him. She was devastated-she missed him-but what’s worse, she couldn’t let go of the hope that it would all work out in the end. Because God had told her that he was the one for her. So she ignored the smarter part of her brain that said maybe she needed to reevaluate a few things, and prayed and prayed and prayed.

And he came back. He was there again, and he told her all the thing she needed to hear. He talked about the life they would have together, and how they would never let one another go; the things they would do, the children they would have-it was the fairy tale, all over again.

He talked so much that it was hard for her to hear how he never really said anything. And though his plans were good, this time she couldn’t ignore the warning bells in her head when he started to talk to her less. She knew something was going on, and finally admitted to herself that he wasn’t really trustworthy. So she turned away from him again, and cut him out of her life completely, even though it felt as though she were cutting her own skin. And she cried for a long time.

But God had told her that he was the one for her. So she got on her knees and prayed and prayed and prayed again.

And he came back again…but he hadn’t changed. Instead of repeating this drama for a third time, instead of crying and praying, our heroine sat down and thought for a while:

Is God capable of changing him? Yes.

But is he changing? No.

Is this situation glorifying God? Did it ever? …um-maybe? But probably not.

Is it time to let this go?

Sometimes we get stuck in repeat. We make the same mistakes again and again, and can’t seem to learn our lessons. And, I hate to say it, most of the time we tend to get stuck the most in relationships. Not because we’re stupid, but because we’re clinging to the idea of what something or someone should be, and not understanding what they are. There is joy in seeing possibilities in life and in people-it opens an entire world. But sometimes, you need to call a spade a spade and just let go.

Since I assume you to be astute readers, I’m also going to assume you’ve deduced the identity of our plucky heroine. Letting go of that dream of him was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I couldn’t accept that he wasn’t changing, that maybe the answer was really ‘no.’ If he wasn’t what I thought he was supposed to be, had I been (gasp!) wrong? Had I misunderstood God though the din of the hormones and wistful thinking and Disney music that accompanies falling in love? And if so, how could I ever trust myself to hear correctly again? The reality of the situation was so scary, and raised so many questions about who I was in God and how we communicated, I chose to ignore and to continue in my pathetic little emotional spin cycle.

Bad news, people: Sometimes, we’re just wrong. It’s not God’s fault, it might not even be your fault. But it’s the truth. You are human, you are fallible, and sometimes, you’re wrong.

It’s difficult to let go of the hard things, like bitterness or resentment. One of my roommates woke me up at 5:15am this morning blasting her music in the shower. At. 5:15. In. The. Morning. And then didn’t apologize. At all. I’m having trouble letting go of that serious breach of the rules of Early Morning Etiquette, although I’m working on it.

As hard as it is to let go of that kind of thing (for me, because I’m petty, I know), it’s even harder to let go of things that used to be positive but have slowly warped into something else, something unhealthy and toxic. It’s hard to let go of dreams that you’ve held on to for so long, and understand that sometimes things…don’t happen. It’s hard not to let yourself be poisoned by them, or to look for someone to blame.

Sometimes we make mistakes.

Sometimes the answer is no.

Sometimes things don’t happen

Sometimes we need to let go.

Just in case the message is not sinking in, here's my favorite winter-loving, ice-monster and annoying snowman making, singing queen of Arendelle to get the message through to you...have I even mentioned how much my kids love Frozen? We know all the words.

The Battle for Alejandra

If you had asked me three months ago what I thought about Ale, I would have told you that she’s a sweet, friendly girl, with a stubborn streak and a strong sense of justice.

If you had asked me three weeks ago what I thought about Ale, I would have politely asked you to change to subject because I couldn’t think of anything positive to say.

What brought this on, you may ask? What caused me to alter my opinion so rapidly and drastically? Let me tell you all about our battle for Ale.

Ale and her sister, Ada, arrived at Esperanza Viva last May. With their stepfather in jail, Ale’s mother was having trouble finding help taking care of her five children, and the girls were being neglected. From the start, Ale adjusted well to life in the orphanage and made new friends easily. She is a smart and friendly girl, and loves to help others. She seemed like a dream child.

Then the real Ale started to show up.

It started with little things, like telling the supervisors, “You’re not listening to me. I said it happened like this,” or refusing to do something that she thought wasn’t fair. “That’s not fair” became Ale’s watchwords. Having to do chores? Not fair. Studying for school? Not fair. Being grounded from playing on the playground for not doing the aforementioned tasks? Definitely not fair!

The parenting books I’ve read assure me that this kind of behavior is not unusual, but still, I have to wonder how other people deal with strong-willed children. The strength of her reactions to the smallest things made me doubt my authority to come against her, and sometimes even made my doubt that I was right to correct her. Honestly, I didn’t want to correct her at all, because every little comment became a battle. Soon Ale began having screaming temper-tantrums that led me to wonder what had happened to that sweet, friendly girl that had first arrived at Esperanza Viva not so long ago?

I think it must be very easy to start to doubt your ability as a parent in times like this. Doubt that you’re handling situations correctly, and doubt your own ability to have the consistency you know you have to have to combat them. Frankly, it’s exhausting, having to be prepared to battle all the time. But you have to keep going at it, head on, again and again, or the change will never come and you’re dooming your poor child to a life of being the way they are-be is stubborn, ignorant, lazy, indulgent or any other inadmirable mixture thereof-or worse.

Our solution was to take away Ale’s privileges until she began to behave herself, to teach her that regardless of what may have happened in the past, here it was NOT okay to scream at, lash out at, throw temper-tantrums at, or answer back to, your authorities. We spent a lot of time with her, explaining why she was being punished; why we were asking her to do the things we were asking, and why all of this was a good thing. It took months for her behavior to calm down. Months. Months of daily skirmishes over disorganized clothing and appropriate tone of voice. And now that things have calmed down, I feel like we’re finally getting to see the real Ale.

She is not the girl that she was when she first arrived here. That girl was scared, and was seeking a way to be accepted in a foreign place with strangers. When Ale finally relaxed and began to behave in the way she was accustomed, it became evident that her behavior needed to be corrected in many areas. And now that she has learned to behave, and understands why she should behave that way, Ale is morphing into an intelligent, helpful girl who goes out of her way to help others. Although her temper occasionally still gets the best of her, Ale understands that she needs to control herself and apologizes when she doesn’t. She no longer thinks her opinion is the only one that matters, and has really begun to think about the thoughts and feelings of others. Her strong sense of justice and fairness has begun to work on her behalf as she goes out of her way to include everyone in her games, not just her friends. Ale is a charming little girl, and someone who will change the world one day-just wait and see.

I think what I’ve learned the most from Ale’s growing pains is that everything worthwhile takes time. As I tell every group that comes through Esperanza Viva in my Sponsorship Talks, none of these kids are here because their coming from a happy home. Even our most well adjusted, happiest children often times are coming out of situations wrought with pain, emotional trauma and many times, abuse. And while it’s difficult-so, so difficult-to be the positive source of discipline that they’ve probably never had in their lives, the end result is so, so worth it.

And for all of you parents out there who have nine and ten year old girls, I sympathize. 

Parenting should come with a 

caution label.

Broken Hearts in the Blogosphere

Those of you who are reading this (hopefully) know that I’m not the finger pointing type. I am an aspiring writer, coffee mug lover and self-admitted book addict, among many other things, but I don’t like to point my fingers and say “Neiner, neiner, you’re messed up.” It’s really not my style. My style is more to honestly proclaim my own faults to the internet and hope people can see themselves in my mistakes. People don’t respond well to confrontation, and if you’ve read my blog at all, you know I have no right to sling mud at anyone else, anyways, because I’m a mess. I’m just a mess that happens to love God and I write a lot.

So this is how this works: I lay out stuff here on the internet that I’m dealing with, and if it applies to you, take it to heart. And if it doesn’t apply to you and you say, “Wow, Alisha is messed up,” well, hey, I just said that three sentences ago, and you’re unoriginal.

The reason I’m pussy-footing around right now (LOVE that expression) is because I want to talk about something that’s going to maybe make you uncomfortable. I say this because I’ve been considering it for the past three or four days, and it has dang sure made me uncomfortable. I’ve even cried a couple of times; so much for my stoic image I have to preserve.

I want to talk to you about love. Specifically, God’s love. Even more specifically, the shortage of God’s love that I demonstrate to others.

I’ve been doing some trolling around the internet lately, looking at different blogs and taking notes, reading content and envying their readership. Yes, I’m a missionary, and that’s a pretty sweet gig, but it’s not all I am. In case you can’t tell from the volume of introspective posts on this website, I’m a writer. I’ve always written; it’s a compulsion for me. It’s my thought process. So, while looking around, seeing what’s on the web, I stumbled upon a blogging movement that’s leaving me staggered.

There’s a growing movement on the internet of young people, ‘survivors of the evangelical church’ who have suffered spiritual abuse coming down from the pulpit. They are talking about their experiences at the hands of people who have twisted to gospel to suit their own purposes, some coming from fundamentalist cults, others from harsh, legalistic interpretations of the scriptures. Some of them, praise God, have been able to move past their experiences and are forming their own churches. Others are bitter and hateful towards the message of the gospel, calling it a ‘message of hate and intolerance.’ And while I’ve been reading the blogs of these people, I cannot help but notice the theme behind these rejected people who have been hurt and who are banding together in their rejection:

It all comes from a lack of love.

This was enough to get me thinking, and caused me to dig even deeper into the blogosphere. I read the blogs of people whose theology I disagreed with, hearing the pain behind their convictions. I read the stories of people who had been turned away from churches simply because they were different, or dirty. I wept when I found the blog of a gay man who was told God didn’t love him because of his sexual orientation.

The bible says, “They will know you are Christians by your love.” Jesus spent his time with prostitutes, tax collectors, and children, among many others. In a time where touching the sick was considered contaminating yourself, he embraced them. To a blind man who was reviled from birth because of the ‘sins’ he must have committed, Jesus simply slapped some mud on his face and changed his life. He loved the people who weren’t important, people who didn’t really matter. He even loved people who were reviled-what self-respecting Jew spends time with prostitutes? And when his own disciples asked him “why?” Jesus answered,

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”

Finally understanding the full implications of that sentence floored me, and caused me to go into a massive jag of privately going through my life as I tried to figure out exactly how much love had been missing from my life. I remembered situations where I lashed out, people I was unkind to-so many people-and all of the times I pushed people away instead of listening to them in the way I knew I should have. I was traumatized by the realization that it had been all about me for so long, I was barely able to love those I was around.

I think what really killed me was that, if I were the only sliver of Jesus someone would ever see in their entire life, they would never see him in me.

There are people out there who are starving for love that we refuse to even touch. I’m not talking about beggars in India or the children of the favelas who live in Brazil. If you were to go work with them, people would maybe wrinkle their noses or ask why you couldn’t just send them money, but they would get it. After all, God calls people to them, people like me. So that’s okay.

But what about the teenage girl who is so starved for affection that they routinely sleep with guys just for some morsel of love? What about the homeless, people who’ve lost everything? What about gay people, who many times have been abused, cut off from their families and rejected by those who once told them they loved them? Where are we as the body of Christ for those people? Where am I? This is the question I ask myself, because I have known all of those kinds of people. I have known people so wounded by life that they were coming apart at the seams, and to my eternal shame I have done nothing for them. Maybe I patted them on the back and gave them a couple platitudes, but love? The kind of love that inspires an innocent man to die for guilty people? That kind of love never even entered into the picture.

My heart is just so broken at the idea that I have twisted the knife in the back of the already wounded. It makes me feel sick, how callously I have behaved towards the hurts of others. And I want to tell you that I have a plan to make this better, but I really don’t. One of the things I’ve learned in the last year is that quick fixes don’t really last. Hurting kids don’t get their hearts healed in 6 months; sometimes 6 years barely makes a dent. All I have to share is this realization of how very little I’ve ever done to show my love for others, of how often I’ve been part of the problem instead of the solution, and the firm resolution not to continue to live like that.

Because if you can’t see Jesus in me, what’s the point?

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything as plain as day, and if I have the faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t have love, I’m nothing. If I give up everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.  1 Cor. 13:1-7

The Only Thing Certain is Change

To my estimable readers,

Some of you more observant readers may have noticed the changes to PovertyBecomesYou. This is because I just recently watched a very interesting tutorial about blogger, and I’m now an expert/professional. Well, that’s not true, but I did watch a tutorial and change the way I’m doing things.

Therefore, if you would like to know more about exactly what kind of person Alisha is and what she does at Esperanza Viva, you can click the Who Am I? page. For information about how you can support me financially or through prayer down here in Mexico, click Needs. If you would like to know more about the ministry I’m affiliated with or visit their links, I’ve include that on the Living Hope International page. Finally, my ‘What’s Next’ page gives you all of the information you could possible need to know about what my plans for visiting MN are, what I have planned for missions trips, and some fundraisers I’m planning (you can also feel free to contact me to volunteer and help with the fundraisers!). I also considered adding a ‘What’s Alisha Reading’ page, but figured it would eventually take over the entire blog. I think by now you have a pretty good idea of what a voracious bibliophile I am.

The sudden flurry of changes on my blog made me think about what exactly I’m trying to say with this site I’ve got going here. I mean, I’m a big fan of Alisha’s adventures in Mexico, don’t get me wrong, but I think a blog with a name like PovertyBecomesYou should probably be about a little more than that, don’t you? And, since so many of you have let me know in various ways that you’re secretly wishing deep down in your souls for more content, I think that’s the direction we’re headed. While my main goal for this blog is to keep my friends and supporters updated on what’s going on with me and my girls, I like to think that there’s a bigger purpose I could be using it for. And while I feel (occasionally) as though I’m just throwing more kindling on the eternal flame of the internet, I’m going to ignore that feeling and just go ahead and do it anyway.

I don’t know how many of you are reading this (although I always assume my mother is; hi mom!) or how many people read this blog on a normal bases, but I a couple of months ago I wrote a post that was called #dreambigorgohome. This blog just basically shared my heart about how I feel about child poverty and a few other choice topics, along with what I plan to do about it. Since I feel that speaking out against the atrocities that are happening in this world is one of first steps to ending them, I’m going to start including stories that I find around the web on this site. Hopefully this will help to bring awareness and action against the evils of hunger, slavery, poverty, and hopelessness.

I am also going to try to blog with a little more frequency, and branch out from just talking about myself and the ministry. Frankly, I think I’m one of the more selfish people in the world, and I think it would be good to get the spotlight off of me for a while. But don’t worry! I’ll be keeping my monthly spotlights on one of my kids and continue to write on the themes of missionary work, spiritual life, and how much harder life is than I ever thought it would be. My goal is to round things out.

One last thing, guys. I’d really like to grow this blog, and get some more people reading it. If you would like to subscribe to PovertyBecomesYou by email, I also added a gadget that does that, located on the upper right side of the blog. Please tell your friends about this blog, like and share it on Facebook, and subscribe to it. And thank you for taking the time to read this relatively boring but fairly informative post about the future of this blog!

Alisha