NOT FRANK! [Westcliff, CO]

NO! NO! NO! NOOOO!

My calm has been shattered.
I have been caught unawares, stabbed with a dagger of terrible news.

I scream a scream that cannot be heard.
I cry tears that no one can see.

Oh, it hurts so bad.
My heart bleeds no blood that should flow,
thoughts circling my wounded mind in ever more painful spirals of agony.

It is dark now. Suddenly there is no light. Nothing remains of importance.
All is void, and I cannot express my pain.

GOD, HOW COULD YOU? WHY? NOT FRANK!

He is so good. He is your son.
He is a devoted husband, loved dearly by Val, your gift to him.
He is a father of fathers to three sons to whom he is a brother.

A Secret [Buena Vista, CO]

A secret is being whispered to me, to my spirit. My spirit, however, seems hard of hearing. I am overwhelmed.



I feel as if I am a deer at a standstill staring into the glaring headlights of an oncoming car.


Perhaps, the headlights into which I stare, causing my immobilization, is the unexpected large bequest I recently received from a stranger and its incumbent obligation to use it well.



Standing still staring is a dangerous place to be, for that which immobilizes quickly descends upon its prey with destruction.



So, I know not what to do, which way to turn. Am I to leap out of the path of the destruction at the very last second, caring not so much about where I land, but instead, simply avoiding destruction?



Or, am I to leap into whatever/wherever and go from there, seeking God's corrective guidance along the way.


Am I immobilized by the bright lights of possible success or the darkness of fear of failure?



"The experience of trying and failing is the way to learn
to discard self-centered programs for happiness and to
surrender to the movement of transformation."
The Mystery of Christ; Fr. Thomas Keating

Clothed with Disabilities [Washington, DC]

What a beautiful, indeed a rare scene. Arms and eyes locked, an embrace of love between two very different yet so very similar lives. Is not God the God of differences? Is it not He who is the creator within the womb? Does not this God clothe each of his loved ones with disabilities?

During a recent photo shoot for Young Life's Capernaum ministry for kids with disabilities, I focused the lens of my camera on scenes of love that so few of my friends have ever seen. It was a supernatural love between people clothed with disabilities. To my eyes so accustomed to fearing differences, it was revealing. A seemingly "normal" person, wearing an invisible suit of disability, embracing a "disabled" person, clothed in his disability. Tom, a handsome, bright, high functioning young man with a crop of red hair wearing his autism. Emily, a perky, blond haired teenager, her lovely laugh unable to be held in, clothed in the mental capacity of a seven or eight year old. Will, a tall, older teen with a devil be damned glimmer in his eyes diverting attention from the thin stream of saliva escaping his perpetually open mouth, clothed in a staggering, awkard gait which he will not allow to keep him from romping around with his friends.

Perhaps our disabilities, whether worn in secret or out in the open, are a test challening us to see beyond the external person to what C. S. Lewis pointed out "…may one day be a creature which if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship…." What a wonder to see the people of Capernaum acing the test, seeing one another exactly in this way, regardless of what they wear.

Immigrants, Aliens, Criminals, Ceaser, and Jesus [Denver]

While photographing the Day Without Immigrants protest in Denver earlier this week, I was stopped by a youngish looking, fit and trim, 50 year old, bike riding hispanic man, who wanted to be sure I left with the right point of view. He was enraged that these so called “immigrants,” who he insisted on referring to as “illegal aliens,” expected immediate amnesty and a fast track to U.S. citizenship.

A Mexican national himself just seven years ago, he looked down upon the protesters, with whom he shared so much heritage, as nothing more than criminals wanting a free ride. His ride, afterall, he said, had taken he and his wife seven years to slowly, yet steadily, navigate their way through the legal maze to citizenship. “Why,” he asked, “do these people deny being criminals? They have broken the laws of my country! Even the Bible speaks about this,” he spoke forcefully, “didn’t Jesus himself admonish his followers to “render onto Ceaser what belongs to Ceaser’s”?

Well, he was definitely in the minorty, a lone hispanic voice hopelessly trying to shout down the other 74,999 protesters estimated to have gathered. And shout he did a few hours later at the opposition rally held by just a hundred or so Americans taking his point of view. It was ironic that his shouts went unheard here as well, misinterpreted by those hundred booing and hissing him out of his pulpit upon a stairway, ears deafened by his skin color to the fact that he was, in fact, one of them. Though why anyone, regardless of one’s point of view, would want to be one of them is beyond me. They were an angry, vulgar, violent group – ugly Americans in America.

None were uglier than the group of five “born American contractors” threatening and cajoling, just waiting to pick a fight with the group of protesters who had wandered over to hear their protest. I have to admit I was confused, having a hard time in the midst of all the tension deciphering the complexities of these issues. I wondered what Jesus thinks of this, and then I noticed the black T-shirt on one of the screaming contactors, printed with words extolling people’s need for Jesus. Yeah, people need Jesus whether immigrants, aliens, criminals, even Ceaser.


An interesting afterthought: Leaving the opposition rally, now cordoned off by 75 or so bulletproof vest wearing Denver cops holding the two sides apart, I overheard one of the Mexican protest organizers say to another, "Yes, it really is nothing more than a race issue.” Indeed...

Jaded Glory [Garden of the Gods]

Just before moving to Colorado Springs ten years ago, I asked a client if he had a view of Pikes Peak and the mountains from his home. He had lived here for several years and told me that he didn’t, and that after the first few years he had no longer paid much attention to the scenery. I told him I couldn’t understand how this could possibly be.

Recently while visiting a few locations around town, I’ve remembered how excited I felt early in our new life in the Springs: walking out of a home improvement store to the surprise of an incredibly beautiful sunset over the front range to the west of our home, on what was to be a delightful June evening, foretold by the cooling of the air; driving in total awe through various mountain ranges; hiking through the Garden of the Gods, fascinated by an area named so well; and more.

I realized that I, too, have become jaded to the glory of God’s creation all around me; even worse to God Himself, to some extent.

This morning, however, driving up Ute Pass to Green Mountain Falls, I was once again overtaken by the wonder and beauty of this area, praising God for the splendor of the deep green forests clinging to and climbing their way up the steep, rugged slopes of Pikes Peak, its fracture lines dusted with spring snow, standing as a senteinel against a brilliant blue sky.

What is it that causes one to become jaded to glory, whether creation or the Creator? Perhaps, I have been all consumed by our consumer society. I know I have become too busy, working way too many hours, driven by an anxiety to provide for our “needs.” I struggle to take control. I struggle to give up control. I have become jaded, but, today, have vowed to be so no longer.

200 Year Old Icon, Jesus, and Mary [Guatemala]

A rut worn dirt path of a hundred yards or so led to a very small house with a smaller out-building at the end of a cul-de-sac of sorts. My son and I were visiting the family with whom he had lived for six months while learning Spanish and working with an NGO in this small Guatemalan town affectionately called Chi Chi. Don Julio and Doña Marta, and their daughter were excited to see their “son” Andy again and to meet his dad, after having met his mom the summer before. It was a wonderful time, sitting in one of four tiny rooms, on a patio under a ceiling, yet surrounded by no walls, as twilight gently descended upon these gentle, humble people. Love was in the air. There was no doubting how real was their love for Andy and vice versa.

Before leaving, Don Julio and Doña Marta insisted we join them in their tiny kitchen for coffee and homemade pastries, Andy and I seated and we ate, as family stood and didn’t eat. This was a special treat reserved for very special occasions. Generously sharing their food was but a precursor to a more important sharing. Leading Andy and I a few steps over into their small bedroom, Don was very proud to show us his prized possession, a two hundred year old icon he worshipped daily, as had his father, grandfather, great grandfather, and great great grandfather. The icon was a small stone animal figure hung with old, rub-worn silver coins. This was a big moment for Don Julio, bringing a big smile to his face when I asked him if I could take a picture of his icon.

Doing so, I noticed how the icon had been carefully placed on a colorful woven mat sitting upon a dresser, prominently displayed in front of small pictures of Jesus and Mary, behind and to the icon’s left and right. The people of rural Guatemala, actually probably much of the population of this Catholicized country, had over time melded their centuries old animistic beliefs with that of the Roman prosletizers. Missiologists call this syncretism – the amalgamation of different religions, cultures or schools of thought.

I had photographed another example of this earlier that afternoon, a man performing an animistic ceremony, waving a can of incense back and forth outside the doorway of Chi Chi’s Catholic church on the town’s plaza. And then later that evening, I was in the right place at the right time to photograph an Ash Wednesday procession with Mayans carrying a richly decorated cross through the center of town, stopping each block to perform an animistic ceremony.

What an odd combination: a 200 year old icon, Jesus, and Mary. A situation, God Almighty cares for not in the least.

PJs and The Call [many questions, few answers]

It was Socrates who long ago observed that.“Contrast is the essence of inquiry.” How about the contrast of photographing kids in great need in a third world country one day and the next photographing cute kids, healthy fresh teens, and gracefully aging adults modeling pajamas, the most comfortable of all garments?

I am 54. I understand so little of what is so important. A Christian for 35 years yet an infant in the way of The Call.

What is The Call? Is it black & white; I either have it or I don’t? Is it a narrow path along which I walk, no steps to the left or right? What, if anything, has comfort, protection, or control have to do with The Call? Why if The Call is so self-absorbing do I allow other things so less significant to so absorb me?

Is there even such a thing as The Call? Have I really received it? Or am I perhaps just a foolish body stumbling forth carrying a weighty, arrogant presumption?

Even if God has called, can My Call make any difference? Or, does doing so even matter? Oh, the confusion of The Call to use documentary photography to help people look among the nations! observe! be astonished! and wonder! at all God is doing in the world (Hab. 1:5).

My life is bound ever so tightly by relentless fetters of time, 24 hours binding all of what I do, a finite beginning and end; fetters that bind my productivity. Or are these fetters but the stripes of yet another costume of self-deception barely clothing my drive for significance?

This contrast is too much, filling my mind with the deadly discomfort of days and days of “I just can’t answer these questions?” One day introducing people to the life and death, the eternal needs of needy people; the next luring the same folks into a complacent comfort lounging the day away clothed in cozy flannel and cool cotton. PJs and The Call?

The Look [Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala]

I suppose it is the fear of rejection and feelings of abandonment that have so plagued much of my adult life that draw me time and again to photos like this. Kids displaced, perhaps without parents, certainly with no home other than their tiny tent in a U.N. refugee camp. Bellies bloated, not from overeating, but undereating. Unkempt hair, dirty, dried mucous covered faces, and the look.

They look at nothing, their hollow eyes wide open pathways leading to empty, lonely places. They have so little. They know so little. Their lives are different than ours. Their’s are simpler.

They live in a small tent camp at the base of the mountains whose slopes yielded way to floods of mud that buried their home, destroyed their village, eternally covered many of their friends and family. They never had much. Now they have virtually nothing. They have memories, yet only those of the mudslide, all others buried along with everything else never to be seen again.

They were kids. Before the mudslides ended a few years had been added to their lives. They heard, saw, felt, smelled, touched, even tasted the muddy aging elixir. They are no longer young.

The look is one deprived of hope, subconsciously hardened by resignation. This is their lot, their feet held firmly in this place by the drying of the mud all around them. The look hasn’t changed much since the mud came down. The look won't change much for years to come, perhaps never.

My Son of So Much [Locke Mtn. Ranch]

Andy, I awoke this morning on the middle bunk, the cool, fresh air of the cabin confining me within the comfort of my sleeping bag, my head positioned such that I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the scene of gentle, morning sunlight falling on the path just outside the window over the stove, and thanful, my first thoughts of the day that I must be the luckiest person alive. What a blessing to awake so gently, without the rude intrusion of an alarm screaming out its frenetic call of obedience to a schedule that must be maintained, instead to be enveloped by absolute quiet, sheer simplicity, and incredible beauty.

I thought of you, how surely you, too, would savor such a moment. For you are my son of so much that I possess, able to keep the hounds of the analytical at bay, in order to let your sensitivities run ahead, following the dimly lit paths of your heart.

As is our habit, I heated up a cup of hot chocolate, sipping it as I walked up to the gate, Louie bounding up the hill ahead in her excitement to sniff out the happenings of the past evening and embrace the pleasures of the day before her, her only concern whether or not she will be fulfilled, having roused a rabbit to chase. You have been like her, pondering past days, yet excited by new ones to come, you, too, looking mostly for the chase that will bring you fulfillment. What another blessing: to have stood as your father, from your birth until present, only a few feet behind, close enough to experience the excitement of your pursuit of what is important to you.

Louie's, like almost all of life's chases, never go in a straight line from point A to point B. Instead, her chases are ruled by circularity, bounding here, then there, only to switch back, and then move ahead once again closer to her goal. For her goal, though it stays the same, never remains in the same spot, endlessly changing directions, knowing full well of its pursuer. Life's goals are like that, crushing the head's desire for linearity with frustrating, unplanned circuitous routes leading us here and there.

I'm wondering these days if the chase, one's unyielding pursuit, is not, in fact, the real goal that brings meaning. For, so much in life, once reached, is anti-climatic. Oh, that I could better understand and live out this thought. That I could let go and follow contentedly, even excitedly, the maze of paths I find myself so often following in frustration, pain, anger, and discontent. Goals, perhaps, are to be reached, yet only by following blindly, regardless of circumstances, the directions of our hearts, learning to trust fully in our selves informing our self.

My love for you is never ending,

Angel Behind Bars [Antiqua, Guatemala]

Staring through bars covering the window of a wealthy shop in an ancient city in an impoverished country is an angel. She sees not and moves not yet watches all the passersby this sunny afternoon: two cute school girls walking hand in hand, an elderly man and wife tourist team taking in the sights, a local drunk staggering, falling, sitting …each living lives with no recognition of this angel’s presence, nor that of the many other watchful unseens living just behind the bars of their perception.

Those Eyes [Guatemala City]

Her eyes say it all, yet what she says I can’t quite make out. I crouch before her, a wide angle lens framing a composition with her eyes and shoulders and her left arm all pointing in the same direction. She must be looking at another student.

Those eyes, rolled up and to her right, mostly white with just a piece of each pupil showing, they communicate. They dictate, giving orders to the mouth to form an almost imperceptible smirk. Those eyes must be looking at another student.

Each she answering a question from her teacher? Is she silently, gazedly responding to the whisper of a friend? Is she embarrassed by the nearness of my presence, unable to look at me, those eyes communicating “Why me? Let’s get this over with?”

Those eyes say it all. I’m just not quite sure what they are saying.

Cards by Day, Knives by Night [Nicaragua]

Dusty dirt streets, most heavily pot-holed, crisscross this barrio outside of Managua, known as Velloamacer. The streets are deserted this afternoon, sole witnesses acknowledging the presence of the tiny tin shacks, staggered, with no evidence of order, to the left and right. A steady quiet lack of movement hovers over the neighborhood. I felt uncomfortable.

An instinctual comfort returned a street later when Alvaro and I came upon a group of guys, all handsome, tanned, seemingly without a care in the world. They played cards sitting in dirt, leaning against the faded teal front of a small store. A rusted, tilting pole supported a net-less basketball hoop a few feet away, a diversion between hands.

The group didn’t pay us much attention. They knew Alvaro, my head-shaved guide and bodyguard. They couldn’t miss the strong muscles filling out his skin tight white t-shirt. These guys were gang members, arms tattooed to identify their loyalty.

The quiet of other streets was soon overtaken by their cackles as I began taking pictures, pushing one another aside, gang members lined up in an unstated, yet obvious, pecking order. They became nice guys, friendly guys, fun to be around. They were gang members. They didn’t work. Days were for lounging, silently broadcasting that they needn't work to their neighbors, from the quiet surrounding streets, now at work.

These guys played a different game at night, when bustle, hustle, and noise returned with each street’s inhabitants. It is a group game. It is extortion by knife. Gang members don’t need complex language to make their point known. Just a simple question rising from the bottom of the pecking order, the top bird hovering nearby for effect. “Hey, you want to help us out, don’t you?” No one resisted. To resist was not pointless. It was a known invitation to experience the point of a knife slicing flesh to form a scar, a visible reminder to friends and foes alike.

They were nice guys, handsome guys, friendly guys. They played cards by day, knives by night.

Gone [Santiago Attitlan, Guatemala]

Living through the rainy season was difficult as it was, mud and more mud everyhwere. It must have been an incredible nightmarish roar that interrupted the gentle sound of rain falling upon the tin roof of his home, a roar that suddenly awoke him and his family from their sleep. It was a sound and a rumbling of the landscape greater than anything they had heard before. And it was coming closer.

They survived, unlike perhaps as many as 1,500-2,000 of their fellow villagers around Lake Attitlan. They must have sought higher ground. Did they climb a tree? There are few left. Most were ripped from decades old roots, fodder before the approaching mud tsunami. Did they climb onto the top of their house? Perhaps for a few minutes, though it couldn’t have been for long. The house was left buried, four feet of mud hardening upon it as if a coffin in a grave filled with dirt. How many must have been buried in such graves? They couldn’t have outrun the mudslide. It was far faster than their feet could carry them across fields already soaked with water beyond what they could hold. He must have rushed his family to the top of their animal’s shed, a newer, far sturdier structure than their home. The shed survived, only half buried. They survived, all their possessions buried beneath them.

Six months later this survivor, watched by his sullen wife, attempts to resurrect the belongings of their past. He digs with a small shovel and with his hands through the now hard-packed dirt atop what was once their home. It would mean so much to recover things, to give them back their past. Taking a break from his digging, his eyes penetrated the lens of my camera, zigzagged off its mirrors, and bore through the viewfinder and into the eyes of my mind. His look touched a nerve; it illicited a response. Empathy. For a few seconds before and after the camera’s 1/250th second, I understood his pain, shared his feelings. They were written upon his face. Pain. Anguish. Regret. Hopelessness. Fear for the future. His possessions, his land, anything of wealth, his home… gone.

The Stare [Managua, Nicaragua]

Walking through a small market filled with happy, bustling, exuberant vendors, I was drawn to a darker corner, illuminated only by the stare of this man. Leaving the light behind, I adjusted my camera’s exposure accordingly, and slowly, sensitively strode up to him, motioning with hands that speak no spanish, asking if I could take his picture.

Stare. Eyes focused, yet perhaps not on this world. No response to my motioned question. Stare. I knelt before him, postured in submission in my act of capturing his stare, his spirit. I stole a momentary slice of it. He moved in no perceptable way, eyes unblinking. I stood. Stare. I turned the camera to show him his image. Stare.

I stepped gingerly out of the darkness of the stare, wading through a shadowed area while transitioning to the world of light, a world filled with moving faces, moving eyes, moving bodies. I glanced back. Stare.

Did this man see me? Is he blind? Did he feel feel the burst of the flash? Had life been reduced to a deadening, a dumbness, seeing eyes no longer seeing? Or, perhaps it was a case of, "Oh, just another gringo taking pictures? Why of me? What’s to look at?” Stare.

If They Ask [Antigua, Guatemala]

I like nothing better than to wander side streets of a new place, camera in hand, at my own pace, my full concentration focused on capturing whatever captures my mind’s eye. For taking photographs has always been a way for me to understand the world around me and to share that understanding with others.

Sometimes, this initial understanding happens subconciously. Consciously, I just go through the motions: choose a shutter speed, an aperture, compose the elements within the frame; click.

As I walked down a side street in Antigua, cherishing the wonderfully warm light of early sunset, I rounded a corner and came upon these two boys. That eye of mine in my mind yelled, “Stop! Take a photo.” I knelt down and took this picture first, almost didn’t take it, annoyed that the boy on the right kept pushing himself into the frame, while I really wanted to take a picture of the boy playing the flute. I finally put down the camera and motioned that I only wanted to take a picture of the flute payer. I took a few, got back to my feet, smiled a smile thanking them, and turned to continue on. The other boy deftly inserted himself in my path, hand held out, mumbling “money, money.” I gave him a couple of quetzals. He moved aside, and I wandered on, pleased to have captured photos of the flute player.

What was that all about?

When I returned to my office, and began to edit photos from the trip, I was surprised to see how uninteresting the photos of the flute player were, yet how interesting (to me at least) was this photo of both the boys, the other boy’s hand extended well into the frame in a universal beggar’s plea. This was the real photo, the one that had worked its way into the back of my mind. Now it began to slowly move up the queue of thoughts seeking my full attention. Here was yet another image of begging, though this time, one with beggars of a different sort. These boys were clean, well dressed, one musically talented, the other with significantly developed asking skills. They certainly weren’t homeless. They didn’t look like their lives depended on a next meal. They didn’t smell. Here were two young, ambitious boys, trained actors, skilled at the art of benefitting from the good graces and compassion of others. They were dupers.

Yet they asked. “If they ask...”

God Forgive Me [Antigua, Guatemala]

As with every other trip I’ve taken to a third world country, I was confronted by many beggars in every area I visited in Guatemala and Nicaragua. How am I to relate to these men and women created in God’s image, each of whom is clothed with a uniqueness to which I respond with pity stripped of action. I make a conscious decision to walk on by, sure to make no eye contact, ignoring the hand reaching outward and upwards toward me, as if I have just encountered a no one. I am ashamed.

What incredible arrogance. Moments after purchasing a tasty treat from a pastry shop, I am confronted with a man who is surely homeless. He is a man of incoherence, a long time since having visited a clothing store and a barber. He mumbles. He smells. Everyone seems to know him; most write him off – a crazy person. I don’t write him off. I pass him by. God forgive me.

How many other people have I passed this delightful, sunny morning, strangers I greet with “hola” or “buenos dias,” a simple “gracias” here, a “mui bien” there? These people, they are young, they are old, some pretty, others not, some obviously with more means than others, yet strangers all that evoke no pity in me, that incite no guilt burning within me. These are some ones. God forgive me.

What is wrong? Is my heart so dulled by a merrily walking along, pastry eating lifestyle that I have become hardened, purposely avoiding anything, any no one, who might cause a momentary burp, a bit of indigestion, in my world of the uber-humans?

This man is blessed. He is poor. He is a man who Jesus said needs a doctor. I didn’t doctor him; I certainly didn’t allow him to touch my garments. What if Jesus did? Is this man, in fact, Jesus? How preposterous!

Is he the overlooked whom I did not feed, I did not clothe, I did not house, I did not meet within the prison of his babbling incoherence, his stinking incontinence? I am but a quickly passing storm cloud, fulfilling Isaiah’s long ago forecast: having stopped my ears, closed my eyes, that I might not have to deal with Him.

This man of sorrow is one for whom I did nothing that I would have him do for me. I abandoned him in his need. I rejected him. Will He abandon me in mine? God, please forgive me. Show me how to repent.

Amen.

A World Much Different [Los Angeles Village, Guatemala]

Reaching the remote villages where World Neighbors partners with local works often entails driving up steep, at times treacherous, single lane mountain paths. Our visit yesterday included a 5.5 hr. bumpy, dusty, 4-wheel drive struggle climbing 5,000' above Teleman, all the while alert for roadway thieves, a three mile hike ever upwards, and a nice, for me, three mile mule ride on the return. We traveled to a Shangrai La, but as all such wonderful places seem to require, we paid a price.

Choking from dust, lazily taking in the surroundings through which we bounced along for hours, I was for some reason struck by one particular sight:

There is a world very much different than mine. It is a world in which a woman in a bright red blouse and her child sit contentedly upon the side of a dusty, winding road, twisting its single lane lazily over the mountains. They sit, no doubt, dawn till dusk, day in and day out, only to be lulled from their trance to sell a drink or snack to the occasional passerby.

What is this trance into which they fix their gaze? Perhaps, it is a trance that prohibits any concern beyond their small plot of land and the green fields shrouded here and there by the wispy ghost clouds ever dancing upon the nearby mountain tops.

What can she and her son be thinking? I suspect they have few worries, given the fact that they have opportunity to daily sit away the day, though the matter of day to day sustenance must forever clamor subliminally for attention in the quiet of their emptied thoughts.

Do this woman and her child have ambition? I'm not sure that ambition, at least other than what has been hard wired into their humanness, is a cultural concept. Yet, this cannot be the case. Afterall, she has a roadside stand. My practically emptied mind wonders what it must have taken for her to gain this possession that so few of her neighbors have. Indeed, she is ambitious. Maybe her gaze is turned inward, plotting how she might leverage her existing asset, into what, I don’t know.

Ambition indeed, yet just how large is her world? Does it extend beyond such ambition? She lives in a small shack, a few miles from the small crossroads known as Teleman, 50 miles or so from the roar of the unbroken expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. Possibly, the road to town and back is her world, a very, very, very tiny speck on a globe, of which she has almost no knowledge.

Yeah, yeah yeah... the ravings of a broken leg pain induced dusty bouncer...

Forlorn [Nicaragua]

Perhaps forlorn is the word that best describes the looks of Adada yesterday and Alvaro today. I’m not sure each communicated the exact same thing, but they seemed very similar, yet I may not be a good judge of looks, especially quick looks.

These were fleeting communications; they may have been furtive, though if so, unintentionally. They caught me by surprise in their hastily cast webs of sadness. No words were spoken, yet much was said. They were sad. I became sad.

Saying goodbye, eyes whispering just moments before in friendly conversation, suddenly cried out in quiet shrieks of hopelessness of the escaping prisoner caught seconds before reaching freedom; actions halted, plans of months and months, perhaps years, halted, as well.

There was no malice in their eyes, only deep, deep wells with surfaces no longer reflecting peace and joy. They had become oil wells pumping forth an oozing, thick, dark reality clogging any pores of hope and suffocating dreams.

Adada is a beautiful, bubbly young woman of 19, unafraid to use the English she, unlike her peers, worked so hard to improve. She’s completed one year of studies in business administration and spoke of her goals and ambitions. Yet as I prepared to leave the inspiring, mountain camp she and her friends were attending, and turned to say goodbye, the open windows into her soul pitifully permitted a quick glimpse of abandonment, the look a young woman wanting so much more than her culture could provide.

Alvaro, a well-built, fun-loving, compassionate, head-shaved guy of 20, took on the same look as I stretched out my hand to shake his, thanking him for his help that day, and saying goodbye. We’d spent a hot, humid day traveling together through barrios on the outskirts of Managua. He’d lived in the U. S. for two years, staying with relatives in San Diego, Chicago, and Houston. When his grandfather asked him to return he did so, and then responded to a Young Life leader’s call to live among and reach out to Managua’s gang members.

As I shared stories and photos from my website he was fascinated, even emotional, listening to and seeing photos of ministry stories from around the world. Alvaro had crossed one border and had experienced two very different cultures, yet it was obvious he wanted to see so much more. As I left, his eyes led me on a brief tour deep down into chambers of dreams, suddenly re-shuttered by the unlikeliness of being fulfilled.

What a joy to meet Adada and Alvaro. How painful to leave them so forlorn.