This is the last piece I will write on this blog concerning my trip to Honduras. By no means does this mean that this is all that I learned in Honduras! I am still learning from God through my Honduras experience and hope that these lessons will still keep coming. All the lessons seem to fall under one of the three major lessons that God was and is teaching me. So here it is…
Lesson Número Tres – Love Does!
As I’ve written before, I struggled with the Spanish language. I butchered it in ways that it may have never been butchered before. I would learn simple phrases that I could speak to people like “God bless you” or “bendiciones” but when it came time for me to speak, my brain would freeze up and I’d just nod and say something like “adios”!
While this was very frustrating when I was trying to order a burger with mustard and pickles only (I ended up with a burger with everything but mustard and pickles!), it was even more frustrating to me when I was trying to communicate very important things like the love of God. I would be in someone’s home who was not sure where there next meal would come from, who was in need of surgery, who had experienced death and I couldn’t tell them how much God loves them. I would be with kids who had no Dad to speak of or who’s parents abandoned them or worse, stayed with them and abused them, and I couldn’t tell them about how God loved them and sent His Son to redeem them. I felt so useless!
Saturday night, I was journaling and praying and thinking through this frustration and I heard God reminding me…show them you love them and you won’t need to speak their language. I began to remember that the universal language IS love. Not just spoken to or about someone, but in action.
Before we left for Honduras, Adrian gave several of us a book by Bob Goff titled, “Love 
Does” God was also using this book to remind me over and over, that love isn’t just somebody standing in front of a group of people preaching and telling them about God, or singing about God. Love is actually doing something. Goff tells story after story of people who’s love for God and their fellow man manifest in incredible deeds and miracles.
And then there was Cameron. Cameron was one of the workers at Mission Lazarus, I believe he runs the agriculture side of the mission. Cameron was with us one night in our devo sharing about the work of mission Lazarus and sharing his personal story…and God used Cameron to continue with His message for me. Cameron told us of some of the work of Mission Lazarus in Honduras. He told us that if they went to people who were homeless or starving 
or dying and told them how much God loves them but didn’t help them, those people wouldn’t really want to hear about this God who in their eyes had left them in poverty and hurt. However, when they served these people, simply out of their love for them and for God, the people began to ask why….”why would you do such a thing for me?” Then Cameron and others at Mission Lazarus simply tell them of the great love God has for them. Love does…it doesn’t just talk…it does.
Cameron shared with us a very familiar passage of scripture, John 1:1. This is a very familiar scripture to me, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God….etc” But Cameron shared this scripture from the Spanish translation of scripture.
John 1:1 “En el principio existía el Verbo, y el Verbo estaba con Dios”
He shared the Spanish version with us because of the use of the word “Verbo”, in the beginning was the “verbo”…that’s right the VERB…the action…that is how Jesus is described by John. And that’s how we should be described by the world.
I don’t care if I’m described as smart, or right, or talented…but if I am to be like Christ, I should be described as someone who is DOING something. I don’t care if our church has the best singing or the most right doctrine or the flashiest building…but if we are to be a Church of Christ, we should be described as a church who is DOING something. Doing something out of love. Doing something that requires sacrifice. Doing something for people I love. Doing something for people that are very hard for me to love.
LOVE DOES! And if we…if I… am going to claim to be a son of a God who is defined by love, I most be defined by Love.
Father, thank you for teaching me so much in Honduras. Thank you for your patience Father….I need it. I commit to you Father to talk less….and do more….in Your name!
DC