I went to Honduras in the Spring of 1999. It was about five months after Hurricane Mitch had devastated the small country, smack in the middle of Central America. It wasn't a storm surge that did them in, or high winds. In fact, as far as hurricanes go, Mitch was pretty tame.
Mitch was only a Category 2 when it made land fall, and quickly dropped to a Category 1 and then a heavy Tropical Storm. But Lord Almighty, was Mitch ever water logged. And when it did make land fall Mitch stalled out, parking itself over the mainland for days.
Feet of rain fell. Rivers doubled and tripled in size. In downtown Tegucigalpa, the capital city, water rose up the sides of buildings above the third story. Hillside villages, built without foundations and held together with cardboard and tin cans, were no match for the mudslides that followed. In the south, near Choulteca, entire towns just disappeared.
I went down for three weeks with a group from my parents church. Our job was simple. Hand out food, build shelters and love on people. The last order proved the hardest. Not from lack of desire or love to give. No. We had love aplenty. But there was suffering so great to overcome.
The funny thing about pain and sorrow is that we humans like to avoid it. At all costs.
Marianne was the dear woman that ran the mission we worked out of. All she asked of us was that we work hard, help where we could and most importantly to see people. At first I didn't understand what she meant, to "see people". Then she explained that we would find the suffering was great and the needs more than we could meet. Additionally, as Americans, we were somewhat conditioned to tune out the uncomfortable parts of life, because comfort came so easy to us.
See people. Truly see them. That was our most difficult task.
When you start looking into the eyes of those who are hurting, you can't avoid their sorrow. You can't pretend it isn't there. You begin to feel
with them rather than just for them.
You can not know the pain of a mother whose child slipped from her grasp into the rushing waters; but you can share it. You can not know the heartbreak of a man who lost what little he had, and now can only provide the shade of a small tree to his family for shelter; but you can sit with him. You will not ever comprehend the sorrow of a child who has wandered the street for days, looking for anyone that she recognizes, anyone at all; but you can hold her hand.
So we did. We saw people. We saw people until it hurt. Until just looking became painful. And just when we thought we could not look anymore, there was hope. The smallest glimmers in the tiniest places.
There was a child who wanted to jump rope and dance.
An old man who had but one arm and two legs crippled by polio, who wrapped his legs around a roof joist and swung a hammer all day long. Singing the only song he knew in English, the first verse of "Amazing Grace".
There was a woman without shoes who, when given a pair of her own, turned up barefoot again the next day. She had given them to her neighbor.
And Molesta, the dear sweet woman who lived in a 6X6 shack made from cardboard, plastic tarps and flattened tin cans. When we brought her 10 lbs of beans and a 50 lb sack of rice, she first tried to feed us and then insisted on praying for us. She came to each of us and took our face in her hands and began to speak. Her voice lifting up to the heavens, tears streaming down the roadmap of wrinkles on her cheeks. I understood little of what she said, but the blessings that poured from that woman's mouth were like water on my parched soul.
A woman who in the most literal sense had NOTHING, gave me the most. All because I chose to see her. To see her as not just another body in line, with insurmountable needs, with her hand out. I saw her as a person who had a heart and soul. Wants and desires. Joys and pain. A real person.
I saw a real person again today. He was holding a sign on the corner of 39th and Sandy. I have noticed that particular corner is regularly occupied. But I haven't seen a person there in years. I forgot how to look.
I don't want to forget how to see people anymore. No matter how much it hurts.
