Free from trauma

I believe I’m 98% free from the the fear that seized me when I was assaulted at gun point by four armed men in Guatemala. That was six years ago.

Six. Years.

All they got was a few thousand dollars — and my checkbook (which made me think they would come back for a kidnapping). No, they stole something else. They stole my confidence.

With one of the students in the Door Bilingual School we founded with the church.

On every subsequent visit to Guatemala, I was weighted by irrational fear. I wouldn’t go anywhere without a member of the church as a “body guard.” (I had planted the church during 16 years, so people we’re quite willing to serve.) I stayed inside. I tried to keep a low profile. I didn’t even want them to make flyers announcing the revivals with my picture on them. In my mind, the same criminals would get a flyer and swoop in for more money.

The thing that strikes about this is how really insignificant was my “trauma.” I wasn’t raped or beaten as a child. I didn’t suffer the scathing burn of emotional abuse from a parent. No. I was simply robbed.

Here’s the junior high and high school after Bible class.

And yet it has taken me six years and God’s help to recover.

So who I am to judge people who have suffered true trauma and spend the rest of their lives floundering? In fact, I have a friend who suffered all three — sexual, physical and emotional abuse. He still struggles to overcome.

If you would have told me to simply shake it off, get over it, I would have been deeply hurt by your insensitivity and cut you out of my friends list. How much more so a person who has really suffered.

A sixth grader in the Door Bilingual School.

It is my observation that people who have never suffered are generally insensitive.

There’s a inscrutable irony in this: God helped me out, but as many sufferers ask: Why did God allow the suffering in the first place?

I have friends who became atheists because as children, they experience a loss of innocence that never should have been perpetrated on a child. My friend has worked his way back to God, and God is helping him.

I hope God can help you too, because He was the major factor helping me. So I recommend Him. Maybe you can work your way back to Him?

A breaking heart keeps me going

We meet the need as a Christian school in Guatemala

Some of the kids come from excellent Christian homes. Many do not.

Their dads are in prison for 30-year sentences. They have no last name because parents disowned them and the system has failed them. They’ve been kicked out of homes and fallen into gangs. They’ve had to work from age 4.

Somehow, they come to the Liceo Bilingüe La Puerta Christian school in Guatemala, and we try to get God involved in their lives. And sometimes it works. One of our students dumped the gang and got the college degree. Another pursued art instead of violence. One guy cut the womanizing and became a family man.

Liceo Bilingüe La Puerta en Guatemala ministers to troubled teens (not pictured)

The need is so great. How can I work for my own personal comfort? How can I dedicate effort to church politicking. Please. There are more urgent things in life.

The Door School in Guatemala is going on its 20th year. It still struggles to make ends meet. Meanwhile it helps sinner and Savior meet.

What a difference God’s love makes!

I have found love in God! You can too!

Or you can try to get by without it. Good luck.

*I don’t own the rights to this pic. It’s by crazy-frankenstein. I am not making any money on it. Kudos to the artist who did this. It’s really cool. I just added words to it.

Hands held high in spite of the pain

There are people out there whose only goal is to humiliate you. They can’t live with themselves, so they have to put you down to feel better about themselves.

For sweet guys like me who thinks everyone ought to encourage each other, these people are a drag. I’m learning to keep praising Jesus in spite of others’ efforts to pull me down. After all, it’s only Jesus that’s worth working for.

I’m learning to stop looking to man, to hope only on Jesus. As they say, man will let you down every time. I pick up a lot of energy from friends. But when friends turn into feeding frenzy, it’s time to call off the friendship and remember that I’m in this only for my Lord and Savior.

I’m sorry, did my back break your knife?

I don’t know how to become impervious to pain. I only want to learn to focus more on the one who died for me and less on the one who would kill me.

He heals hurting hearts

Only Jesus.