Trust

August 19, 2007
This past week I spent several days in Tegucigalpa where I worked on getting one last document for my residency. I was successful in that I actually have the paper even though the office told me I did not need it. I opted to be safe and get it rather than have to make another 4 hour trip to the capital. The trip was also successful in that I found the couple I stayed with 8 years ago when visiting Honduras with a college class. I ended up staying with them for part of my time there and it was good to reconnect and be able to talk with them at a deeper level since my Spanish has improved.

But I think that the trip was most successful because of some of the things I began to realize. Trust would be the word to sum up the main lesson of the week. In Tegucigalpa I did not have a car available to drive wherever I wanted so I had to rely on public transportation – the very thing that many people warn against because it is too dangerous and you cannot trust either the drivers or the passengers. Well, I had no intentions of being housebound while my hosts were at work so I took taxis and I took the bus. I probably paid more than I should have a time or two with the taxis but I did barter down the price to what the locals had said was reasonable. I even took a collective taxi from downtown back to a shopping center – the taxis that take more than one person at a time. On Friday I decided that I wanted to go to an Agricultural University outside of the city to check out their bookstore for some books on trees, so I found the local bus and hopped on. It was during this ride that I was able to chat with the teenage girl beside me. I was surprised when she bought me a dessert to eat from one of the boys selling things along the road. With her help I figured out where to get off the bus.

At the university I had no success in finding the book, but the views from the mountain and the opportunity to converse with Pamela made the trip worth it. Not to mention the fact that I love feeling safe enough to venture off into the unknown. I wanted to keep going though and find a hiking spot or waterfall but I knew that would be beyond the line of appropriate risk as the moment. I returned to the city and tried to find a bus to a different university, and in the process I discovered that one should ask the driver where they are headed before getting on the bus because I ended up going in the wrong direction in spite of what the bus declared as its’ destinations. I, therefore, had to take more taxis to get where I needed to go.
On my final bus back to San Pedro which was one of the executive types, comparable to the coach buses in the US, I spent a good portion of time chatting with the girl beside me. She works in a factory in some type of management and we got to talking about how a Challenge Ropes Course is great for building teamwork in employees, so perhaps I will meet up with her again at camp someday.

Anyway, throughout this week I have also been reading a book called Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L’Engle, and in one chapter she tells the story of a father who wants to protect his son from all pain and hurt and so he warns the boy not to trust anyone. At one point he asks his son if he trusts him and the son replies affirmatively. The father then tells the boy to jump down from a few stairs into his arms. The son does so but the father steps aside and lets him fall to the ground. The father’s words: “You see you must trust nobody.” I can only imagine the scars that would leave on a young child, to go through life unable to trust anyone but himself. To face life with the opinion that no one can be trusted would equal a lonely life. Probably everyone in our life will hurt us at some point and let us down, but we have to trust and depend on others anyway. And we can trust the Lord though even with Him our lack of understanding of His ways may lead us to think initially that He let us down too.

I realized through the week’s experiences and readings that I must trust people around me. Yes, there are taxi drivers who are dishonest and thieves but for the most part they are simply men doing their job. Yes, there are thieves on the buses, but there are also lots of people in need of a smile, of someone to care. I think that if I avoid public places I will be missing out on connections and opportunities to share God’s love. And so as I pray and choose when to venture out into public transportation or the more “risky” areas of life where I have less control, I have to trust too that the Lord is guiding and guarding me (not that that means I will never get hurt).