of stories & open doors

Stories are powerful. As Darrow Miller says, in development work there are 3 stories that intertwine—our story, the community’s story, and God’s story. It is in the intersections and weaving of all of these stories that the messy work of development happens. God is long at work in communities and in our individual lives before we ever enter a community—and He has been at work in the world since its creation.

Having visitors from the FHUS office this week meant that I heard a lot of stories—some for the first time, some in much more detail; many I heard with fresh ears as I translated, listened, observed, and answered Rez and Mary’s questions.

After one particularly moving interview with a pastor, Rez commented, “You seemed really impacted by what you heard. Their story is part of you now. You carry it with you.”

It’s true. I was. You see, G. grew up on the streets, sleeping in the park, and perhaps might have been forgotten by the entire world had a police officer not taken notice of him, cared enough for him to ask him to shine his shoes, and eventually offer him a job. After some years in the increasingly corrupt police force he became involved with the church and was sent to pastor a church plant in an area with no running water or latrines. During 18 months he had no contact with the sending church. His wife was pregnant. They had no money. G says “it was hard”—as if that phrase can in any way communicate the desperate situation his family was in.

This same man eventually came to become the pastor of a small church in one of the roughest neighborhoods in northwest Nicaragua. High indexes of gang and drug activity. Houses made of plastic and cardboard. Dirt roads. Malnourished children. And a growing problem with AIDS.

Pastor G says, “Love is the most horrible thing.” In other words, once you care, you cannot let people suffer when you have the power to do good. And that is what this man does every day. Even though he and his wife and their 4 children struggle to make ends meet, G feels compelled to give of his limited resources to help neighbors he knows with AIDS, to bring them soup, to regularly donate a night’s worth of income to their needs. Hearing this story as I observed the love in this pastor’s face stirred my conscience and the tears behind my eyes, just waiting to fall.

He says his vision of the church’s purpose has been changed by the Nehemiah Center. And he has put his expanded vision into practice—not only in his own personal life, but in the way his ministry works. It’s not about him, or the number of people in his church. It’s about serving the community. Sometimes he says, 100 come, sometimes 50. “The important thing,” he says, “is that people come. And that our doors are open.”

The same thing goes for the door of our hearts. And, all I can say is, mine is opened much wider this week thanks to hearing this humble, strong, and compassionate man’s story. It is a part of me now. May I always carry it with me.