Dirty Hands

Blog post written by Maribeth Miller

I am sitting under a tin roof listening to the symphony of the rain droops on the roof. Can I say that I love being in Latin America! I am an Missionary Kid (MK) from Argentina. So I have grown up helping out with short term missions trips and LOVE every minute of it. This is the first time that I have been in El Salvador. It is a beautiful country but what has been even more meaningful is the peoples' love and passion for the Lord. Last night we had the privilege of making food and going out to serve the homeless. I have never actually fed the homeless before because it is too dangerous to do so in Argentina. I was excited and had prayed a lot that the Lord would allow me to see these people with his eyes.

The first step of this process was to make a big assembly line. I must say that they had a great system going. We prepared sandwiches and included a bag of cookies, chips, an apple, a juice box and a Bible verse. We quickly prepared around 144 meals. We then all loaded up in the back of the truck, prayed and we were off. It was so incredible to see the beautiful city at night.  The whole experience truly was amazing. We stopped at many places that Kurt (the missionary host) knew by heart.  It was almost unreal how people would "magically" appear from the dark corners at the vibration of the truck. My job for the first part was passing out hygiene products (Yes, I am a nurse and washing my hands is crucial to my existence). Little did I know that the Lord was going to teach me a big lesson tonight.

At the second stop I handed out a bag of food to a man who thanked me and I could see how his hungry belly was so thankful because his eyes sparkled in the night reflection. He then did something that I did not expect. He held out his dirty hand to me. As a nurse I knew that his hand would not be clean by any stretch of the imagination and I did not want to think of all the germs that he had. I held back my hand for a second but then the Holy Spirit came upon my heart and said "Maribeth, he is my child and I love him. Do the same." "Ok Lord" I smiled, held out my hand and said "Muchas bendiciones" (which means many blessings).

After we started again God really brought conviction to my heart.  Another heart breaking experience was to see a little girl approaching the truck.  I was not prepared to see such little children on the street.  God spoke to me and reminded me that these are his children.   He loves them and wants me to love them like real humans as well. So many times we only want to take our Christianity to our "clean,  air conditioned churches" but we are really missing out of the kingdom mentality and loving HIS forgotten people.  We often only want to touch the world with our sterile gloves with hand sanitizer clipped to our backpacks. Yet we are afraid to touch the dirt of the world. But this is what we are called to do. So, let's take off the sterile gloves and start loving our world and get our HANDS DIRTY!