“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; where knowledge is free; where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; into that heaven wake this [native] land.”
Heaven is an interesting way to describe a place on earth. And yet I believe that heaven is all around us. We have the chance of opening that door and peaking in; of discovering what it means to release a slight amount of heavenly influence into our surroundings. We are God's mechanism for brining the kingdom to earth.
The quote above was written by a Bengali poet named Tagore. He was Hindu. Not that the fact of his religious upbringing is rightly important, but it does add background. Reflected in his writings is his deep desire to see the Indian people woken up out of their uneducated naiveté. And the words "by narrow domestic walls" take on that much more meaning when they come from someone with a caste system upbringing. I didn’t have the privilege of knowing this man while he lived; much less being a close friend, someone who understood the motivations and deepest desires of who he was. But I do know someone who I believe would echo this man's words, maybe not for India precisely, but for Honduras.
17 years ago a man named Guy Henry took over a small piece of property in La Entrada, Honduras. Since that time he has changed what was once just a bible school into a thriving boarding school and orphanage. The atmosphere is reminiscent of a young life summer camp. Service is the life blood and God the brain of this whole project. Love from the staff, and primary from Guy and his close friends, is the electrical activity; sending messages from the brain through to the different organs of this living, breathing, and growing organization.
One such 'organ', if you will, is a program called Vida en Accion (Life in Action). At first glance the program seems like a normal outreach idea. Find the need of the communities, meet those needs, and continue doing so until they become reliant on your service. It is desperately the opposite. Each community Guy and his team of pastors finds is, of course, in desperate need of aid. But more than that they are in desperate need of education, of a sense of community, and a sense of deep seeded purpose. From those ideas, and ideas Mr. Henry has mentioned could only come from God, Plan Escalon and Vida en Accion formed. These plans have a longevity to them. The school here is populated by children from each of these communities. The children are given the tools to return to their communities, or to engage Honduras on a whole, in a way which breaks down narrow domestic walls, gives people the ability to hold their heads high and break through fear, and opens up channels for educating more and more people. They are the mechanism by which Honduras may be woken into that heaven. And the mechanism by which to waken Honduras his summed up in the phrase "leadership through service." Part of the curriculum here is teaching the kids the importance of hard work and the importance of giving back. Each student is required to go back to a community, one which is similar to the situation he or she was in before Escalon, and help out. Whether that means bringing in a bed, food, clothing, wheelchairs, or all of the above only hinges on the needs of the specific community. But one thing they do bring into these places is the message. Showing these people that there is a purpose to which they can align their life; and it will revolutionize their community.
Guy likes to use the word revolutionized. It seems appropriate, as there are things which take such a mental and physical toll on those fighting against them that calling them revolutionaries may even be slightly underscoring the toll they are taking. The government here is as corrupt as they come and the distinction between rich and poor as abrupt as can be found anywhere. The people in the poorest communities do not normally have much hope, but God brings them some, through the work of the students here at Escalon and the team Guy has formed to lead them. These people, both inside and outside of Escalon, are fighting against a systemic wrong. One which is bigger than them individually, and possibly even together...though it is my view that God works in the way we allow him as his hands and feet. And nothing is to big for him.
And since I have worked on forming that view new things have popped up around Honduras which make me consider the place Escalon has in the bigger picture of this country. Guy's passion is a bottom-up approach. Showing people a better way to live, educating them, and giving them a deep-seeded passion to actually follow the message; loving those around them because of their deep desire to join with God in healing and serving the world.
But there are other approaches to this idea of revolutionizing the nation. My friend Jill is working on a top-down approach. She works for the company AJS and has a passion for being a healing agent in Honduras. But her and AJS also work at a government level, attempting to transform the minds of those at the top of the pyramid; showing them a different way to live. One where greed isn't the fueling motivation, but a sense of justice.
And then there are numerous other stories of friends who are quietly but effectively working to change the lives of the people in the newly named "most dangerous country in the world." It seems to me that God does have a way of infiltrating a nation in small, but influential ways. And it seems like God himself, through the people who joyfully join with him in giving to the world, is attempting to change a nation. Attempting to waken a people into a heaven of his making.
In the words of more recent poet "all my life I've been waiting for; I've been praying for; for the people to say; that we don’t wanna fight no more; there will be no more war, and our children will play. "
"One Day"
Picture numbero uno: Evin, a friend of mine down here, playing "clown" with some of the kids from the orphanage