So here I was still working to secure my next job. I had my eyes on a senior position at Deutsche Bank, and had been interviewing for the position for nearly a year already. While I was still at Morgan Stanley I even travelled to Europe to interview with many folk, but the job process was still not yet complete, and no concrete offer had come forth yet.
Around that time, Rick our associate pastor at St. Paul approached me and said flat out, “I think God want’s you to go on this missions trip I’m organizing to Teupasenti Honduras with the Children’s Rescue Mission”. I was like, yeah right. That’s what you tell everyone you want to come on the trip! Besides, I argued to myself, I’m in the middle of trying to secure this job before my time at Morgan Stanley is up! Like a good stewardship style argument.
None the less, I said, Lord if you want me on this trip you will have to show me and make a way.
Rick suggested I come meet Miguel Giron, the founder of the mission. He was originally from Honduras but immigrated to the united states as a young man. He cracked the border and eventually made his way to Norwalk Connecticut, where he had Honduran family members already living there. He got saved and started attending John 3:16 church, a Pentecostal congregation in the rough side of town where many other Spanish speaking people attended.
So we met one night at St. Paul and hit it off famously. I really enjoyed his company and the feeling was mutual. I was fascinated by how he was “paying it forward” by returning to his community back where he grew up and establishing a mission there in Teupasenti, feeding and clothing the Children of that city, which was a poor city as a witness to Christ and the goodness of God.
Honduras is second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere only behind Hati, which is number one, and in the fall of 1998, the mountainous area there near the Nicaraguan border was devastated by Hurricane Mitch with thousands dead, 85,000 homes damaged or destroyed, 1.5 million people homeless, and $2Bn in damage. The President said at the time it had set the country back 50 years economically. The rains got so bad, that it stripped the topsoil from all the farmland there in and around Teupasenti, which devastated their crops and economy, especially the coffee industry which was and still is the main cash crop of the area.
Miguel’s parents were in the center of the destruction. They were also some of the biggest coffee farm owners and operators at the time. The coffee farm lands were upcountry, well up in the higher elevations in the mountains. It was a hard life, with travel back and forth up to the coffee fields roughly 1-2 hours each way through dirt road switchbacks.
Several people from church including Dirk and Jen, joined Miguel on the first responders flight just a few days and weeks from the original tragedy. From this temporary relief trip, other trips followed. Each person was hauling like 10 giant duffle bags filled with supplies as checked baggage. Eventually, Miguel descided he needed a permenant presence in town to help the people, especially the children. Hense, Children’s Rescue Mission was birthed.
So I had heard about all this through church, but wasn’t directly engaged.
I remember somehow concluding or hearing from God at the time. It was one of those prayers like: Jesus, you know I need to get this job and I’m still in the midst of the interview process, which might require me to travel and interview in a days notice. I felt like God’s response was – I’ll take care of it – you help me and take care of these kids and help the people of Honduras. The scripture Proverbs 11:25 comes to mind here.
A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.
Proverbs 11:25
So, I was now excited and looking forward to the trip. Having faith that God would work the job situation out. Some other businessmen and elders in the church had turned down the invitation due to “work conflicts”. In my zeal was like – I’ve got those too but I’m going anyway!
I had all sorts of grand ideas of how I could use my business expertise and experience to help the economic development of this struggling city.
Once I was on the ground, however, I was shocked by how primitive everything was. But more than anything else, what stood out to me was the purity of the people’s hearts in worship of God. Such a simple faith, a trust in God. I heard stories of people in some of the remote villages who in the past when the skies dried up, and no crops would grow, and the only thing left was to gather up scraps of firewood and carry them on the back of a donkey miles away into the city, only to sell it for pennies – for maybe one meal.
People living in conditions like this who are trusting in God for everything, starting with their next meal have such a simplicity to life. Such a strong faith in Jesus. Truely, they were demonstrating the simple faith that God will make a way.
I had brought all of my life’s complications. A mortgage, the bills, my next job in my career, many other details of living life. Highly educated, highly motivated we in America lives such complicated lives. Is there even time for God?
By contrast, here were the Honduran people living simply. Not highly educted, not highly stressed, not arrogant, but humble. The contrast was unreal.
I had come down with my fanciful notions to teach the Hondurans how to excel like American’s, entrepreneurially and create new business opportunities. To make some things happen. That I was going to teach them how to do business.
Wow. Instead, I came away from this week long trip having learned the value of peace and contentment and faith in living simply. Nothing between man and God. What a contrast. Instead of teaching the people something, they taught me the simplicity and beauty of unfettered faith.
None the less, when I got back to the United States, and God had honored his side of the understanding (my job with Deutche came through, and I was one of the few to receive a 7-figure contract in the midst of a great down turn and layoffs on Wall Street). I quickly slipped back into a mindset of Capitalism and ambition. With my experience slowly fading in my memory.
An example of my old mindsets remaining was when my friend Miguel mentioned that he had an idea to acquire Cattle and raise up steer on a farm in Honduras not too far away from Teupasenti. My reaction was an intellectual one – why would we invest in a business here to make money? If we want to make money, let’s invest in the place with the highest returns in the world – Wall Street! I was still very attached to our American mindset of money holding the highest value in our culture. Why invest in a Honduran farm when we can invest in tech startups, private equity, and hedge fund strategies and make real money?
How far I still had to go…