Puddles

James Jones

Los Charcos, Honduras

 

 

 

When Susan Nally approached me about writing the blog post for today, I was a little nervous to say yes. I haven’t written anything since my college days, which was around the year 2000 and none of your business. But even as I cautiously said yes, I wondered what in the world I would write about. As I should have known, God gave me the words and the blog wrote itself as the day drew near, then came, and went.

 

After our marathon day in Guimaca, everyone was worn down and tired. Beth Ann, the fearless leader of our medical team who is four months pregnant, finally gave in to our requests to take a day off since she has been eating, sleeping, and working for two. That meant that someone needed to head up the medical team in Los Charcos. Beth Ann approached me on Monday night and asked me to be in charge of the medical team.  My first thought was “Ok, God, I asked you to give me something to write about in the blog and you sure answered that prayer fast.” I immediately expected to be very nervous about today, but for some reason I had a calm feeling all night and again in the morning. As I should have known, God is in control at all times.

 

Los Charcos means “puddles” in Spanish. I didn’t know that until after we arrived back from our day there. When I asked Jose, one of our interpreters, what it meant, he had a hard time translating it to English and simply told me “It’s what fills up holes.” Again, unbeknownst to me at the time, this was God speaking directly to me. At the time, I didn’t understand what God was saying, but after I found out the real meaning of Los Charcos, I realized that God was saying that in our lives, He is what fills up our holes. Our mission team comes from all walks of life and all types of places across the United States. We all have holes that need to be filled. Speaking from experience, I have attempted to fill those holes with things other than God. What I’m sure you have all realized, God is the only thing that can fill these holes in our lives. And He sure did today.

 

The first hole that God filled for me was that feeling of nervousness and fear about having to lead the medical team after only two years as a translator (that title for myself is very lightly given as I speak what my brother Adam and I call “caveman Spanish”) and one year of medical experience with Luke 9:2 Ministries. However, as I said before, I had a calm feeling the moment Beth Ann approached me about leading the team. God was my puddle.

 

The second hole was having the worn out, exhausted feeling that I and many, if not all, of the members of our team had this morning. We had gotten home at almost ten o’clock at night, eaten a quick, yet delicious, dinner, and headed straight to bed. Since we had an hour and a half trip to Los Charcos, we had to get up and eat breakfast early again and get on the road. Just as I started to think about how long and difficult the day would be, Caleb and Michelle started to lead us in our morning worship and God started speaking again. We started to sing the song “You Are My All in All.”  Although all of the words spoke directly to me, three phrases immediately filled up the hole of exhaustion. “You are my strength when I am weak”, “Lord, to give up I’d be a fool”, and especially, “When I am dry You fill my cup” were like one of Brother Doug Duty’s quad expresso’s to my soul. God quickly reminded me that I had nothing to fear, He was there to be my puddle, to fill all of the holes in my life.

I could continue on and on about the holes in my life and the ways God has filled them and became Los Charcos, my puddles. Let me end this blog post with how today went. Without Beth Ann being present at the clinic, I feared that I would not have an answer to someone’s question, or I wouldn’t be able to get everything running smoothly as our previous days had been. What I here, but one thing is clear it was about God, our team, and our purpose. After about two hours of working, I took a small break and kind of stood back and looked at how our clinic was running. Even though Beth Ann wasn’t physically present, I saw her years of hard work and planning right in front of my eyes. We were functioning like a well-oiled machine. Everyone knew their role, everyone knew who to go to with questions, and everything went unbelievably smooth. We have many team members who do not work in primary care at their jobs at home. But you wouldn’t know that if you saw them today. They were incredible! They were awesome! God was working. God was in control. God filled our holes. God was, and is, our Los Charcos.

Notes from a Newbie: (Tanya Carter)

As I reflect on the trip thus far, I am truly amazed by the gratitude of the Honduran people.  We are able to do so little for them – just temporary fixes for mostly chronic problems.  We will never know the impact we made here, but one thing is clear, there will be a permanent imprint on my heart from this trip, by these beautiful people.  I’ve truly fallen in love with this country, and though I am leaving, a tiny piece of my heart will remain eagerly waiting for me to return.  I am so humbled that God could use me in a small way on this trip.