Looking Up

For the few mornings, I've woken up to be welcomed to another full day in Honduras. Right outside my door is the wall that encloses this beautiful tucked away family owned hotel. It's a beautiful stone wall with lush green foliage growing about its foundation. A burst of color will break forth in the form of a flower on the wall. It's a beautiful wall. But it is a wall nonetheless.

I wonder what it would be like to live within these physical walls all my days and the only hope of another world was to look up. To look up to a sky where birds fly freely and the stars shine brightly and the rain pours refreshingly. 

These last couple days in Honduras, I've thought about walls a bit (as you can tell) because I am learning about walls we sometimes feel trapped by. A couple days ago Ashley and I began meeting with the SoloHope artisans. They knew we were coming to capture their stories on video. We could tell it meant more than either of us could have imagined that someone wanted to know their stories.

Their stories were heartbreaking. Their stories spoke of walls that had held them captive. Walls of broken families. Walls of poverty. Walls of hurts and pains. But in midst of their stories were glimpses of looking up. Looking up to a place of freedom. Of peace and joy. Of hope. They looked up to see more than the walls they had known in their lives. And as they have looked up, the walls have begun to fall, no longer there to hold them prisoner.

One of our artisans shared how at one point she had become so discouraged and disheartened by her hardships that she walked through the doors of a church looking up. Looking for hope. The members prayed for her and told her a big blessing was soon to come into her life but she would have to fight for it, to continue looking up. As she recounted her story, the blessing came, she shared, two years after the church members prayed for her and it was a job with SoloHope. 

Walls of lack and poverty have begun to fall as their eyes have shifted from the walls that encircled them to look up to the skies of freedom and hope. These women inspire me and give me a determination to keep looking up beyond the walls of doubt and fear and failure. Their stories have greatly impacted me. I feel honored to know each of them and to have the opportunity to work with them as they are talented, loving, determined women who show me the power of looking up everyday.