That's Dangerous

I hear the words "that's dangerous" more than I ever imagined. It is usually from locals in Honduras - when we are having a conversation about where we work. Particularly the communities where we work. It usually happens when somebody not familiar with the work we do begins to question what we are doing here. I tell them about the work and the next question is " where do you do all of this?". When I tell them that we work in communities with names like Los Pinos, Mirrador Oriental, San Migeal, Villa Nueva, Sector Ocho, or others the response comes back - "Wow, those are dangerous places."
When I first heard this, I was a little shocked because we are pretty careful about where we take people to work. We really do want to keep the people that we bring to the country as safe as we possibly can and we certainly don't want to introduce anyone to "danger". After "chewing" on this for a while, it occured to me that everybody does this - in the states, I spent 3 years driving past East St Louis. When I lived in California, I would drive past South San Francisco or Oakland. I never stopped there to see what the needs of the people were because in my mind those were "dangerous places". In fact - those are likely dangerous places...especially if you are caught up in the dangerous lives that some of the people that live there choose. The sad thing is, there are a majority of people living in those "dangerous" communities that are ignored and are left feeling hopeless because the people that God chose to deliver hope are afraid. I don't know how many times Jesus told us "do not fear". Our Great and Awesome God used these words with his own people all the time. Do not fear, I am God and I will be with you.
Jesus told all of us - "Go into all the world" and he didn't qualify that with "except for the places that you think are "dangerous". He just said GO. In John - just before his death on the cross, Jesus told the apostles that they would be in danger if they followed him. That is a promise that is made to all of us. Everybody is not going to love us if we are doing the will of our Savior.
This blog has been on my mind for a while and on Friday, it really hit me again. The reason is that we were planning to take a load of food to a place in the mountains called Morales. Morales is a destitute place about 2 hours from Tegucigalpa. Morales was hit by an earthquake about 6 weeks ago and the desperate people that live there are now in an even worse state. The community has been ravaged by the massive rainy season and that has been compounded by a series of earthquakes that has destroyed much of what was left of their meager homes. They are hungry. My friend that had planned to take us to Morales told me Friday that we couldn't go without security because "that's dangerous". We didn't get the security detail so, today - the day we had planned to go - we are home instead and the people are still hungry and desperate. This week I am determined that we are going to find a way to get food to Morales. We can't know about a situation this close to us and this desperate and not do something...... especially when we have a warehouse full of the food that they so desperatly need. I believe it is more dangerous to sit back in fear....dangerous to faith.
Do not fear and be a blessing to somebody TODAY!
Marc