Here is what ministry is like: Because of continual theft at the mission, we acquired one dog. Then, two were gifted. We rescued one more. Another dog came emaciated to our door. We opened the door. A baby one sat for weeks in an agro-veterinarian store, it made Kim cry . . . so we took her home. Their owner officially abandoned a month ago two female pups across the street. They were scheduled to be dumped in the jungle or killed there. We were already feeding and medicating them, so we opened the gate to the mission; they have never left. It is getting complicated, yes. Every morning when I get to the mission I love on every single one of them. I let them lick me, jump on me and nibble my arms, hands, ankles. At the end of the day, already dirty, I get on my hands and knees and let them play with me. I try to remember to hold each one in my arms a little bit before I go home. Tiberius, Bobby, Sulu, Deeanna, Bonesy, Coco, Licky and Lucky. About month and a half ago, a regular visitor to the mission, regularly abandoned by its "owners" showed up again on our doorstep hungry and thirsty. We left food and water out in front of the mission school. Our guard let him in one evening. The next day, I received an explanation of why two week-old baby kittens were gone. This doggy, who we call Boca, which means "Mouth" because of his large mouth, found them to be tasty. Upon hearing this I was upset, asked the dog to be taken off of the property and not allowed in again. We would provide food and water outside. His owners came into the village and put him back on their property to guard. They forgot about him for a month. No food, no water. Boca escaped to stay alive. It is no wonder he hunted down the little kitties. I forgave him that day we put him back on the street, and was, in fact, upset that our guard had abused him. He had a huge gash on his head when he left the property. I was sad for him. Boca showed up on our doorstep two weeks ago: emaciated, covered with large ticks, wounds seeping, hair missing from parasites in his skin, skinny. It was sad. We gave him food and water. He was so bad, I took him to the veterinarian, de-parasited him, gave him meds for the past two weeks for his skin parasites, fed him, watered him, let him lick me and nibble on me in the mornings, and got on all fours with him in the evening. He is a different dog from two weeks ago, at least physically. Mentally, maybe spiritually, he is still wounded and in need of transformation. Although he has his every need met, has new doggy friends, plenty of food and water, a safe place to sleep at night, his own human who will touch him and show affection, his instincts kick in and betray all the safety and trust which he now enjoys. Today Boca decided to hunt down our black and white kitty, Teodoro. I have constantly chided Boca all week, when he would go into the barn to hunt kitties. It was getting dark and I heard a ruckus in front of the barn, the all too familiar sound of the pack. That would be the dog pack - sounding ravenous, growling, yelping. I rushed from the mission school yard, listening to see if they are just attacking each other or barking and fighting for position at the make-shift gate, to ward off the mean big red dog who passes by slowly and purposely comes to the gate to intimidate and bark. Then I heard the hissing, the howling, terrified cries of a cat. Sadly, they were all there, minus Bobby who is just a tree trunk with four legs and a tail. Boca had Teodoro pinned down in the corner where the property wall and the barn meet. It was only a matter of seconds before it was all over. I grabbed two dogs by the skin on the backs of their necks and tossed them off. Two met my boot. I grabbed the horrified puffed up hairball, hissing and biting. I took a bite to the shoulder. Ouch! I did not let go. Then he sank his teeth into my left forefinger. I did not realize how ferocious my little jungle kitties could be. His half-inch incisors sank into my bone. I did not let go. At this point, I have dogs around me led by Boca, jumping up to snag Teodoro with his clamping vise-grip like jaws. I ran with the screaming, hissing Teodoro to the mission school, dogs in hot pursuit. Teodoro sank down on my left thumb, taking a good chunk of it almost completely off. Thank God you only really need one thumb to be able to type. I tossed the cat into the school and closed the door. My body went into shock, I stumbled down to the sidewalk on the side of the school. My body was trembling; it had gone into shock. I was reminded of what happened to me last year when Tiberius was defending me against the drunken town mayor who without invitation opened the door of the school leading to the playground and the dogs and began to taunt them. I had just taken Tiberius outside to protect this drunkard, because Tiberius does not like drunken people. Tiberius lunged for him in order to protect me when he opened that door. I held onto my beloved dog, knowing that if I did not, the town mayor would be dead or seriously wounded. I cried out, "Why?" as my eyes teared up while Tiberius chewed on my hand in one spot and then sank his beautiful sharp canine incisors into my other hand. I trembled and shook after that incident too. And just as Tiberius had done, so too had my little Teodoro, sank his little teeth down enough and almost taking off the side of my thumb, the crimson liquid just poured out of my thumb and out of my forefinger and down my hand and arm. I pray all the blood on Teodoro was only mine. I was angry at my dogs, especially the three recently rescued ones, as they were the instigators in this attempted cat picnic. They are only dogs, but I still talked to them as I led each one to the kennels, "Uds. deben tener verguenza," I barked at them. "You should be ashamed!" They are all bilingual. After securing them all - dogs and cats in their respective places - cats in the school, dogs in the kennel. I immediately forgave the dogs. They do what they know, what they are taught, what they have had to do in order to survive. I forgave the veterans of our little pack - for just that - their pack mentality. They truly are like the Three Musketeers - except in this case - the nine musketeers. Did I really just say nine? All for one and one for all! Here at the mission. Children com and children go. Families move in and move out. They come and befriend us and their children participate, until the local religious institutions get a hold of them. And, well sometimes we never see them again. We keep showing the love of Jesus anyway. Some families had broken into the property and then used their children to break into the school and take things. We still opened the doors to them. You could see the shame and embarrassment in their faces – they would not look at us. We loved them anyway. When a family who robbed us moved away, we sent them off with love, funds for travel, pictures to remember us by – in love. When they showed back up in the village six months later, we opened the doors for their children. Sometimes here on the mission field, it’s the ones you love and trust the most that hurt you often and often deeply. Dare I say, sometimes its other missionaries? So, we take the bites, and we lick our wounds, and we keep trying to exhibit Christ like-ness to them and to others. Often, it is people whom we have invited into the mission, that have become a part of it and what we do that wound us with backstabbing and rumors and other undermining non-sense. Like a pack of street dogs they bark and complain and as a group go around, giving into their natural hunter nature, trying to destroy with their mouths what God has us doing here in Guatemala. And even sadder yet, sometimes it’s the children or their families who in the midst of being helped by us, through a variety of ways, do not realize that we are really trying to help them. So, they bite at us with their sharp double-forked tongues, not realizing what they are doing. Not realizing that our helping hands, our helping them up, instead of just a handout is for their good both physically and spiritually. Threats of being lynched by machete toting family members come and go and you shake them off and scratch them off like the fleas and ticks that they really are. Discriminated against for being a “gringo” becomes almost like something that you learn to live with, even though you wish it would go away or stop, like a wart on a finger, or that ever-receding hairline, that really is not a definite line anymore. We have been rescuing children from starvation along with dogs. For the past month we have taken boxes of food supplies to what used to be a family that is now a hodge-podge of some of the children – the youngest who have been left with an older sibling who suffers from periodic seizures and has two father-less children of her own. The mother – she was widowed last year. She left the village to find work. It costs her too much money to return every night, so she decided to stay in the city. She was supposed to come back every weekend. She does not make it home sometimes for weeks. A pre-teen girl –supposedly spirited off by a female lawyer who has land in the village, a teenage boy, abandoned school to look for work; a dangerous proposition for teens in this country. I visit the home and find it in shambles. I bring wood for fire to cook with. The children are hungry. They devour the oranges and mandarins that I bring from the mission orchard. You can see it in their young eyes that they are thankful. There are other children in the room. Neighbors. It is late, already 9 o’clock in the evening. Mothers have also left them to fend for themselves. We bring more food. It gets complicated, as children, like the abandoned dogs of the street, spread out from house to house looking for food or a place to sleep. I do a million calculations in my head how we could possibly help these children, how can we show them Jesus loves them tangibly through food. But they are also alone. There is no one in the shacks they call their homes, to spend time with them, to cook for them, to help them with homework, to hug them in the morning and to get down on all fours and play with them in the evening. Then, I hear from the other side of the shack, “El gringo Teodoro, el no ayunda a nadie dice mi mama” I smile and touch the heads of the three children in the outdoor kitchen who are with me and act as if I did not hear, “The Gringo Theodore, he doesn’t help anyone says my mom.” Did that really just come from one of the children to whom we just provided another week of food? Did that really come from the mother with whom I spoke with the other day about what we would do to help her, as we encouraged her to at least come home mid-week to see her children. Didn’t we just offer her help with transportation so that she could do just that. “Les quiero mucho. Dios les bendiga.” I tell them all, touching them all as I leave. I tear up once I close the door of the truck. “I love you all a lot. God bless you.” They cannot see me inside. It is dark, pitch dark. It hurts to be bitten. If these wounds and this treatment manifested itself, we would look pretty much like Bonsey did when he arrived on the property: hair all gone, sores covering a skin covered skeleton; a tired dog, jaw hanging down with broken teeth from getting kicked over and over, and covered in fire ants that were literally eating him alive. Or maybe we would look like poor Boca, gashes from abuse, patches of bareness where the parasites are destroying his flesh, skinny form worms, skinny from lack of food, parched, tired, neglected, forgotten. And I think to myself, “How much are we forgotten?” I can truly only imagine, apart from what I read in the Bible what Jesus endured as he traveled and taught. He took people in and opened their eyes, minds and hearts, and some accepted and became great disciples. Others, well, they betrayed him. Wasn’t it a pack of ravenous wild-dog like leaders who went to task to destroy and ultimately kill the man Jesus? They did not understand. Jesus rose again because He wasn’t just a man, and in so doing fulfilled prophecy and affirmed the new covenant that He was sent to the earth to fulfill and bring about. He was trying to help them. Thank God some were listening. So, I try to relax a little this evening. Thumb ,arm, and finger throbbing. I am thinking about Jesus up on the cross, nails through his flesh and bone, blood streaming out of the wounds, his flesh pierced at his ribs, blood dripping down from his forehead and around his ears from the crown of thrones. Sweat, blood and tears pouring out over his body. People who misunderstood him, who betrayed him, who would not accept his message of love, nor believe the miraculous manifestations of that love, who finally got it, must have wept out loud. I am thinking how taking in and caring for a bunch of abused animals is similar to trying to spread the Gospel and share and show the love of Christ to impoverished children and families (physically and spiritually) , in spite of and despite the backlash, the rumors, the threats of death and destruction, getting bitten by those you love and about whom you care and try to feed. Sometimes, you have to simply endure getting gnawed on and barked at and bruised and battered in order to get your point across. Jesus did, and his disciple Paul did, didn’t they? God is love! Matthew 25:40-45 New International Version (NIV) 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ 44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ 45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 13:46:22 +0000