Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

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How Honduras Captured My Heart

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The truth is, I didn’t even want to go.

Last fall a courageous young woman named Haley came to my church to talk about the children’s home she directs in Honduras. Instantly convicted by her story, I turned to Brad in the middle of worship. “I’m going to Honduras,” I whispered, leaning close to his ear. “And I’m taking Rowan with me.”

My church has an ongoing partnership with the church and community of La Ceibita, a rural village of about 250 people in north central Honduras. We send dental, medical and house-building teams there three or four times a year. After I heard Haley speak at church, full of the fire of the Holy Spirit, I signed Rowan and me up for the July trip.

Just days later, though, second thoughts began to invade my mind like Creeping Charlie in a summer lawn.

What if I get sick? What if I can’t eat the food? What if it’s dangerous? What if I can’t handle the work, or the smells, or the heat or the language barrier? What if something happens to Rowan? What if the other people in my group annoy me? What if I annoy them?

Suddenly I could think of a hundred reasons why it would simply be better for everyone if I stayed in my own backyard.

Rowan was also less than enthusiastic. “Next time the Holy Spirit speaks to you, leave me out of it,” he huffed on the drive home from one of our trip meetings. Don’t worry, I thought. The next time the Holy Spirit speaks to me I’m running in the opposite direction. 

We left our house at 2 a.m. By noon the same day, ten minutes outside the San Pedro Sula airport, I’d glimpsed more dire poverty through the van’s dusty windows than I’d seen in the previous 49 years of my life.

Barefoot children, barely dressed. Tin-and-tarp shacks. Trash in towering heaps. Dirt and mud everywhere. Dogs running loose, their matted fur stretched tight over protruding ribs. Men perched on crates at the edge of the road, staring as we drove past, and I couldn’t tell if their eyes held curiosity or disdain. I held on tight as the van shuddered over the uneven road, dread and fear simmering in the pit of my stomach.

Twenty-four hours later, I was at home in Honduras in a way I never imagined possible.

The poverty had not vanished. The heat was still more oppressive than anything I had ever experienced. The food was still largely unfamiliar. There was still the threat of illness (Honduras was in the midst of a dengue fever epidemic). There was still dirt and mud, undrinkable water and a tarantula the size of a salad plate in the boys’ cabin.

The circumstances had not changed. And yet, everything had changed. Honduras had come to feel like home for one reason: the people of La Ceibita made it feel that way.

Maria, Teresa, Mary, Ulysses, Angel, Daniel, Karen, Myrna, Marcos, Yoni, Lucy, Nora, Pastor Manolo and the entire La Ceibita community opened themselves wholeheartedly to us without pretense, without reservation, without expectations. They invited us into their homes, served us food made with their own hands, laughed with us, prayed for us and with us, shared their hearts, hopes and dreams and loved us with unabashed affection.

Truly, I have never received hospitality and generosity like I experienced in Honduras. The people who outwardly seem like they have nothing to give gave us everything that has ever mattered. They gave us their whole selves.

Everyone always seems to say the same thing when they return to the United States from visiting a developing country: “The people gave me more than I gave them.” Truth be told, I’ve always found that sentiment irritating. Inwardly I’d roll my eyes and think, How precious. How totally cliché. 

I’m here to tell you, it may be cliché, it may be “precious” and worthy of the eye-rolliest eye-roll, but in my experience, it’s the honest-to-God truth. I went to Honduras assuming I was going to serve the people there. Turns out, the people served me far more and with greater graciousness, patience and self-sacrifice than I could ever have hoped to serve them. I am now rolling my own eyes at my own self.

Maria and Teresa cooked three delicious hot meals a day from scratch for our ten-person team (plus two translators and the pastor) on a wood-fired stove in a kitchen the size of my bathroom with no indoor plumbing. And then they did all the dishes by hand in the outdoor sink, swept and mopped the floors and began the process all over again to prepare the next meal for us.

Maria had a stern countenance and rarely cracked a smile. When I first met her I was intimidated and assumed she was angry. I couldn’t have been more wrong. One afternoon when I told Maria, through a translator, that the food she cooked for us was delicious, she replied, “It’s because I make it with love.”

Teresa and Maria in their kitchen at the church.

Ulysses and Angel translated prescriptions and medical jargon for hours in a makeshift clinic that served more than 100 patients, never once expressing impatience or frustration at my complete and utter inability to master even the most basic Spanish phrases and spellings.

This is Ulysses, who truly can do all things.

Nora invited Rowan and me into her tiny outdoor kitchen with its blue-tarped walls and dirt floor and demonstrated how to make flour tortillas. One hand clamped over her mouth, she giggled shyly at our fumbling attempts. Nora was remarkably patient and gracious — especially considering the fact that Rowan burned his tortilla to a smoldering crisp, and I accidentally dropped a piece of Saran Wrap on her stove.

Here’s Ulysses, our translator, helping me shape my tortilla (have I mentioned that Brad does all the cooking around here?).

This is Nora, fixing us a real meal after we bumbled our tortillas.

The entire church community sang a spirited welcome to us during evening worship on our first night, and even though we couldn’t understand most of their greetings, their open smiles put us immediately at ease.

Truly, I could write two dozen stories about my eight days in Honduras.

I could tell you about Lucy and Carlos, who live in a one-room tin-and-wood shack with a dirt floor and bedsheets for walls. They share one bed with their three children.

This is Lucy in her previous house just two days before she and her family moved into their new cinder-block house.

While the team was putting the finishing touches on Lucy and Carlos’ new house, Lucy taught us how to make tortillas.

I could tell you how Lucy leaned against the door frame of her new cinder-block house – a house smaller than my living room – and wiped away tears, praising God as she watched the crew hang wood shutters over her windows.

I could tell you how Carlos recently lost his job at the local chicken processing plant because he spent two weeks in the hospital recovering from dengue fever. The day we visited his home he was volunteering at the elementary school.

I could tell you that Lucy has recently gone back to school. She’s in ninth grade now, and when she finishes high school she hopes to pursue a nursing degree because she wants to set a good example for her kids.

I could tell you that every single one of the Honduran people I met works harder just to survive (for an average salary of $6-$7 a day) than I have ever worked a single day in my life. On the day we visited the zoo (yes, we went to a zoo in Honduras…that’s a whole other story!), we passed a man repairing the road, heaving fresh dirt into deep trenches carved by rushing rainwater as his tiny son played in the ditch. Hours later on the drive home I spotted the same man, still bent over his shovel, still heaving dirt in the blazing sun. His son stood from his spot in the ditch and watched our van as we drove by.

I could tell you that the Honduran people love their country and cherish their culture and traditions. Their communities are tight-knit, vibrant and full of life. They are deeply connected to their extended families. The Honduran people don’t leave Honduras because they want to, but because they feel they have to: to escape gang violence in the cities; to find viable, sustainable work; to provide better opportunities, education, safety and security for their children (most of whom are forced to leave school by age 10 to find work).

I could tell you a dozen more stories about my time in Honduras, about the people I met and what I learned and experienced there. Instead, I will simply say this: God ignited a profound love in me in Honduras that will not be extinguished. I do not yet know how this love will manifest itself, but I know this for sure: the people of La Ceibita captured my heart. Honduras changed me forever, and I am grateful.

A Legacy of Generosity: In Memory of Rachel Held Evans

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Bestselling author and speaker Rachel Held Evans died on May 4 after a short illness. She was only 37. I didn’t know Rachel well; I never met her in person. Nonetheless, she had a profound impact on my life, not only because she helped change the trajectory of my writing career, but also because as a questioner and a spiritual wrestler, Rachel was a kindred spirit. Though our spiritual journeys were very different, her story touched me deeply and resonated with me as someone who has struggled with doubt – a topic she wrote about in two of her books (Searching for Sunday and Faith Unraveled) as well as on her blog.

I wrote this essay the day after Rachel died. It ran this past weekend in my local newspaper, but I wanted to share it with you here, too.

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Bestselling author and speaker Rachel Held Evans died unexpectedly a little more than a week ago. She was 37 years old — a wife, a mother to two young children, an influencer, an advocate and a generous supporter and encourager of many, myself included.

I first connected with Rachel in 2011, shortly after I’d started blogging. I don’t recall exactly how our paths crossed online, but at some point, after we had exchanged a few emails, I summoned the courage to ask if she would be willing to read a couple chapters of my memoir manuscript. Despite her own full schedule of speaking and writing, Rachel didn’t hesitate to say yes to my request. A few weeks after I emailed her the rough draft of my book, she asked if she could send it to her literary agent.

This was no small gesture. By that point I had been pitching literary agents for two years and had had zero success. I’d already received nearly a dozen rejections, including one from Rachel’s agent. It seemed every door on the path to publishing had closed. Until, that is, a woman I’d never met in person offered to help.

Rachel’s agent eventually signed me as a client. Seven years and four published books later, I have Rachel Held Evans to thank. Without her generous offer to use her influence and connections to benefit me, a virtual stranger, I truly believe I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to publish a single word.

In the days following Rachel’s death, my social media feeds were filled with a near-constant stream of similar testimonials, a telling memorial of her generosity and kindness. Turns out, I wasn’t the only one Rachel had helped along the way.

Countless authors shared stories of how Rachel had encouraged them, used her influence to give their careers a much-needed boost and championed their work. Others shared how Rachel’s own writing had shaped their faith and renewed their hope in God. Still others testified how Rachel had used her platform to advocate for the marginalized, particularly members of the LGBTQ community, people of color and women in the church.

Rachel Held Evans stewarded her influence well, but the truth is (and I learned this from her), regardless of whether we are famous or not, or whether we have a substantial platform or not, each of us has the opportunity to do the same. We may not have the reach to impact thousands like Rachel did, but we can offer encouragement, extend kindness, love extravagantly, champion others and give generously in our own small ways and within our own individual spheres of influence, just as she did in hers.

Maybe this looks like writing a letter of recommendation for the high school student who aspires to attend college, or providing a stellar reference for the friend in the midst of a job search.

Maybe this looks like advocating for a marginalized person in your community or validating someone who feels unseen.

Maybe this looks like emailing your boss to praise a colleague’s efforts that otherwise would have gone unnoticed or offering a word of encouragement to a struggling neighbor.

No matter how small our sphere, there is always someone we can lift up.

I didn’t know Rachel Held Evans well, but I am grateful for her, not only because her generosity made a difference in my own career, but also because she left a beautiful and powerful legacy, reminding me that I can and should use my own bit of influence to benefit others. I want to be more like Rachel: an “influencer” in the very best sense of the word.

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Rachel leaves behind her husband Dan and two children under age three. If you would like to support her family, you can make a donation in her memory here. 

Why You Don’t Have to Grasp for God

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The wind is gusting hard this morning. Tree branches clash and clink, coated in ice; twigs screech across the sunroom window like fingernails on a chalkboard. From my desk I watch the sparrows spilling seed at the feeder, the dark-eyed Juncos pecking at the dirty snow. High up on the trunk of the river birch tree, a strip of papery bark waves in the breeze like a prayer flag.

“So now what?” my counselor asked me in our session last week. “What do you want to do now that the book is out and your responsibilities there are easing up a bit?”

“I just want to do my regular stuff – work, write, be with my family,” I replied.

It was such a simple answer – some would say a boring answer – but for me, the answer to my counselor’s question was something of a revelation.

My desire to “do my regular stuff” is an indication that I have relinquished (at least somewhat) what was once my relentless drive to produce and achieve. I feel less driven, less inclined to strive and accomplish, less need to push. Instead, I sense a broader, deeper ease and openness in myself, not only in my professional life, but in my spiritual life as well.

Last month I read something in Ann Voskamp’s Advent devotional The Greatest Gift that struck me hard. “When do you find yourself striving, reaching, grasping, for the next rung to try to pull yourself closer to God?” she asked.

I penned that question into my journal and pondered it. There was deep truth for me in Ann’s words.

All my life I have been striving, reaching and grasping – striving toward professional achievements, grasping at personal goals, reaching in my relationships, and yes, even striving to pull myself closer to God. I’ve often looked with envy at others who speak about God with seemingly more intimacy than I have with him. I assumed they had something I didn’t. I assumed that if I pushed and grasped and strove harder, I would find what they had.

Why You Don't Have to Pull Yourself Closer to God

I am finally beginning to see the truth though, which is that we don’t need to strive, reach and grasp for the next rung to pull ourselves closer to God simply because God has already come close to us — closer, perhaps, than we can ever perceive.

I know now that I don’t need to pray for the deepest desire of my heart – to be close to God – because the deepest desire of my heart has already been answered. I have God right here and right now. I had God yesterday. I will have God tomorrow and the day after that and for all of eternity.

It is simply in our ordinary living and being that we find God. He has already drawn near. He has been here all along.

The winter wind has died down. Outside my window, the pine boughs barely shift, the birch bark prayer flag is stiff and still. The sparrows and Juncos sit tucked into the lilac shrub, alert and expectant.

I sit at my desk and watch the snow begin to fall, quieting the world in stillness.

I’m doing “my regular stuff,” as I told my counselor. I am working. I am writing. I am folding laundry and stopping at the post office to mail a package. I am spending time with my family.

And in all that is regular and ordinary, I am already and always with God.

What I’ve Learned: Winter Edition

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Four times a year Emily Freeman hosts the seasonal What I’ve Learned, and this week it’s time for the Winter Edition. Here are a few silly and serious things (okay, mainly silly) I’ve learned these last three months.

Welcome Back, Retro Clock Radio

At some point a year or two ago I switched out my trusty clock-radio on my bedside table for my smart phone. I didn’t love the look of the digital clock, and I figured why not simply use the alarm function on my phone. The problem was, I have zero self-control when it comes to “just one quick check” of my email before clicking off the light. Most nights, the “one quick check” would spiral into 20 minutes of scrolling Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. By the time I set my head on the pillow for actual sleep, my mind was a jumble of thoughts, facts and anxieties.

These days I park my phone at the charging station downstairs, set my bedside clock radio alarm to NPR and read anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour before drifting into a peaceful, more restful sleep. Turns out, using my circa-1998 digital clock radio for my alarm instead of my smart phone is much better for my brain and my body.

And Speaking of My Phone…

Turns out, I’m on it a lot more often than I thought (Jesus is rolling his eyes at that statement). After hearing about the free Quality Time app on the By the Book podcast, I downloaded and installed it on my phone to measure how much time I’m actually on my phone in any given 24-hour period. So far my week averages are: 12 hours, 8 minutes (week one); 14 hours, 14 minutes (week two); 20 hours, 1 minute (week three). Yes, I have noticed that my weekly phone usage has nearly doubled since installing the app. This is my long-dormant rebel side kicking in.

So far it seems I spend the majority of my phone time on Instagram (4 hours in one week – yikes!), Voxer and text messaging, followed by my podcast app and Audible (I am training for a half marathon, so I’m listening to more podcasts and audio books than usual), Gmail, Facebook and Google maps (I can barely get to the grocery store without Google maps).

What I’ve learned from the Quality Time app has been illuminating. That said, I don’t have any plans to curtail my phone usage. I did, however, install it on my kids’ phones. [insert maniacal laughter here]

Morning Pages Aren’t So Bad

A few years ago I picked up Julie Cameron’s The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity at my local library, but I didn’t even get halfway through it. At the time I considered it a bunch of woo-woo bunk and promptly tossed it into the book drop. Fast-forward to this month when, after struggling with writer’s block and a general lack of creative energy for the past six months, I retrieved The Artist’s Way from the library again, and this time, it resonated,  particularly Cameron’s practice of morning pages.

The premise of morning pages is deceptively simple: write three long-hand, stream-of-consciousness pages first thing in the morning. There are no rules or restrictions. You can write about anything and everything, even the angry, petty, whiny, boring stuff (especially the angry, petty, whiny, boring stuff), and if you get stuck, you simply write “I don’t have anything to write about” again and again until you get unstuck.

Cameron calls the morning pages “the primary tool of creative recovery.” She argues that writing out all the junk allows us to “get to the other side — the other side of our fear, of our negativity, of our moods, and above all, of our Censor.”

Like I’ve said, I’ve been skeptical, but this time around, for whatever reason, I am finding morning pages to be a fruitful practice. I don’t know how this practice will ultimately impact my professional writing and creativity (or even if it will), but I do know this stream-of-consciousness writing has unearthed some stuff that feels important and that I will have to spend some time processing and unpacking, which is bound to be beneficial to my life as a whole, as well, perhaps, to my writing life.

Bifocals Are the Bane

For the last year or so I’ve had to depend more and more on my Target readers, not just for reading but also for such basic tasks as eating (blurry food, anyone?) and filling my coffeepot to the proper four-cup water mark. Thus, I decided it was time for Big Girl Glasses (aka bifocals). I got my swanky new pair last week, but the trouble is, the reading portion of the lenses is, like, 1 mm wide. It’s like reading while looking through a drinking straw. I have to hold my head at the exact right angle and the book at the exact right angle and heavens must align perfectly and then maybe, maybe, I will see actual words.

Seriously, you should see me read a book these days. It’s like I am a watching a tennis match, back and forth, back and forth, one word at a time through my drinking straw eyeglasses.. The optical experts have insisted that I “give it time,” and that my “eyes will adjust.” In the meantime, though, I am lurching around Lincoln, careening off curbs, catapulting into coffee tables and reading like I’m watching the Williams sisters volley it out at Wimbledon. Adjust schmust.

I Am Officially Middle-Aged

It’s not just the bifocals that cued me in to this fact. A couple of months ago, a young woman in the marketing department at work asked me if she could photograph me because she “needed my face.” Initially I was flattered…until I realized that what she was really saying, in her sweet, twenty-something way, was that I fit the demographic she needed, which was “middle-aged lady.” Later, when I saw the ginormous spread in the member magazine (note to self: next time ASK HOW PHOTO WILL BE USED), it looked suspiciously like they had added some gray “highlights” to my already gray-enough hair!

Seriously, did they not make me grayer? People, they made me grayer! Is this even legal? (they also whitened my teeth, but I am totes okay with that)

That’s it for me – basically this winter I’ve learned that I am old and can be made to look even older. What about you? Tell me about one thing (or five) you’ve learned, and be sure to stop by Emily’s place to read some more What I’ve Learned posts – they are fun!

This Year, Hold Your Own Plans Loosely & Listen for the Quiet Voice of God

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I’m big on New Year’s resolutions. Every year I make four or five, and while I don’t always keep them past January 31 (case in point: “floss daily” has been an annual resolution for ten years running), I always have good intentions.

I also like to kick off the New Year by reading a book that will both inspire me and help me identify my goals for the year. Recently I posted a note on Facebook asking for recommendations for my January read. I specified that I was looking for a non-fiction book focusing on productivity, goal setting, and “how to figure out what to do with my life.”

I got a several intriguing suggestions in the comments, but one woman’s recommendation stopped me short. “Rebecca” (and for the record, I don’t know Rebecca personally) suggested, “Instead of choosing your own goals, pray and ask God for His goals and do that. His plan is always better than our plan.”

I admit, I bristled when I read Rebecca’s comment. It felt a little bit like I was being lectured, as if Rebecca was suggesting that as a Christian, I shouldn’t set goals, but instead should simply “go with God.” I rolled my eyes and wrote Rebecca off as a holier-than-thou wet blanket.

The problem was, days later I was still thinking about Rebecca’s comment. Turns out, she’s right, at least in part.

On one hand, I think Rebecca oversimplified the process of listening to God. To simply “pray and ask God for His goals and do that” implies that God operates like a magic genie: ask your question, rub the lamp, get your answer. Unfortunately, at least in my experience, God doesn’t download an Excel spreadsheet, complete with action steps and measureable outcomes, directly into my brain.

It seems instead that God reveals his plans much more slowly and quietly. Sometimes, honestly, it seems he doesn’t reveal them to us at all. I rarely recognize God’s plans as they unfold in the moment. Instead, the impact of his subtle work in my life is often only visible in retrospect, as I look back months or even years later.

On the other hand, I think Rebecca was right in observing that most of us, especially at this time of year, are so busy resolving, planning, and executing, we forget about God himself. So focused are we on writing our to-do lists and strategizing our goals for the year, we forget that we are not in control.

I learn this lesson the hard way over and over again. Every time my plans go off the rails and I find myself shaking an angry fist at God, I’m humbly reminded that the reason I’m disappointed is because I’ve put my faith, hope, and confidence in plans of my own making, rather than in God himself.

I still made a couple of resolutions this year (though fewer than I normally do), and I’ll still kick off the New Year with a book that I hope will help me identify my goals and priorities (if you have any suggestions, let me know!). Frankly I can’t help it; I will always be a Triple Type A planner.

But I’m also going to take Rebecca’s advice. I will incline my heart toward God, listening for the whisper of his still, small voice in my soul. And I will try to hold the plans I make loosely, trusting that God’s plans, even those yet to be revealed, are ultimately better than any I could make for myself.