Over the last 4 articles, I've shared some of my thoughts about my trip to Honduras. I know those thoughts are incomplete. I've left stuff out maybe I should have included; more thoughts and reflections will undoubtedly hit me in the days and weeks ahead.

But as soon as possible after my trip, I wanted to capture my reflections. Definitely as a way of remembering, but more importantly, to help inform the life paths I choose going forward.  

Because I brought a truth back from Honduras. To a large degree a truth I've always known it - but today it's written on my heart. It has a relentless voice. And it's saying:
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You have far more paths to choose from in life than most of the world.

​Before I left, people warned me - you'll come back feeling guilty. While I was there, a wise woman
warned me against coming home feeling pity. 
Well, I've wrestled with enough guilt in my life to have been beaten down by the uselessness of that emotion. And being back home, I know the least beneficial resource I have to offer the people of Honduras is my pity.

But what do I have to offer? What can I do now?

I keep going back to a conversation we had as a team after dinner one night in Honduras. ​We talked about the idea of a changed mindset. 

We all have a mindset. It guides the decisions we make in life. I believe at the heart of my own mindset, - quite subconsciously up until now - is the repetitively whispered question: is this next choice motivated by a desire to make your life better - or someone else's? 

I believe our culture tries to seduce us with the possibilities of how much better our lives can be. It wagers on the belief we're most motivated to make our lives better. 

- Our bookstores are full of self-helps and self-actualizations and self-esteem builders.
- Advertisers break it to us not so gently every day where we are coming up short in life, but then in turn heroically offer to sell us a solution. 
- Social media is a me me me highlight reel. 
- Bank accounts are often the only human performance metrics that really matters.
- Life is all about keeping up with and not lifting up the Joneses. 

Sure, this is a broad generalization. But take a look around. Are the interactions you're having in your life encouraging you to be your best self or helping someone else become theirs?

But here is the question that begins my what now journey. Here is the questions I'm committed to asking myself more, and encouraging others to ask themselves more. What if it isn't an either or proposition? 
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What if we simply have it backwards? What if the cultural invitation to pursue our best selves is an endless chase, too cruel to even let us know it's a dead end? And what if that chase is a self-destructive distraction from the reality that helping someone else become their best self IS the path to becoming our best self. What if getting committed to the esteem of others is the purest path to boosting our own self-esteem?

I come home committed to making that subconscious whisper in my life - is this to make your life better or someone else's life better - a question that begins to shout to my life and not one that shamefully hides inside it. 

So what does that look like?

It looks like taking the time to get the shoes I no longer want or need in the hands of Soles4Souls. I've now seen how Soles4Souls is wearing out poverty with them. I've seen how they can make someone else's life better, and fill our landfills much slower. If you want to know how to get your shoes and to Soles4Souls, go here. 

It means pushing forward with a plan to partner with Soles4Souls and the World Compass Foundation to host a 5K in Honduras next spring. If you're interested in being on the team that goes to Honduras to run the race and distribute shoes, you can shoot me a message at [email protected]. 

If you can't go to Honduras, which I get, stay tuned to more information coming soon about how you can register to run or walk the race virtually and support Soles4Souls and the World Compass Foundation. 

It means looking at more people in my country through the lens of how can I help you instead of how can you help me. 

It means doing everything I can to help people see the answer to turning our country's epidemic of pain inside out is turning our mindset inside out - literally.
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Thank you

To everyone who financially supported this journey. To Soles4Souls for being the perfect organization to travel and learn with. To Raul Carraso, my Honduran brother who opened my heart to his country and his people. To everyone who joined this journey by collecting and donating shoes. To the amazing team I got to travel with, I didn't know one of you when I showed up in Honduras. By the time I left, I loved you all and have gratitude for how you shaped my life. And to everyone who prayed for me along the way. Thank you. 

My wife is a photographer. I always say she takes pictures with a picture already in her head of what she wants to capture. Me - I pull the trigger on my camera with no earthly idea of what's about to be produced. I simply snap the shutter with hopes that if I snap it enough times, I'll capture something meaningful. 

When I got home from Honduras and began going through my pictures, this one stopped me in my tracks. I knew I'd captured something meaningful. 

When I took this picture, I was clearly focused on the little girl's smile. How could I not be? But without planning for it or knowing it, I also captured something that would become a heartbreaking theme for me in Honduras. The older the kids got, the closer they got to being the ages of my 10 and 12 year old boys, the harder the smiles were to find. ​
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The backdrop of so many young children erupting in the most precious smiles you can imagine was countless older children who seemed to have settled into the notion that the world no longer offered them much to smile about. 

I grew up with a notion planted in my being that if you can dream it you can become it. Today I know that's not necessarily true - we all have some limitations on what we can become. But this part of that notion is truer than ever - what we do become in life is absolutely built on the foundation of our capacity to dream and imagine. 

We were on the way down the mountain after one of our shoe distributions. I'd just begun to notice this dynamic of some who smile and some who don't. I shared my observation with one of my teammates. I told her I thought the greatest poverty many of the kids were facing in those isolated villages was the opportunity to dream and imagine. How do you dream, how does your imagination expand, I asked her, if all you ever see is a world singularly focused on survival. 
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Because survival, in my opinion, is not a function of dreams or imaginations - it is the human instinct we all bring with us to the world. The fight to survive is our one true bond. But that fight is intended to be what ultimately fuels our dreams and imaginations; it was never intended to be our life's work. 

My teammate challenged me with my line of thinking. She asked, if one's never seen there's more to hope for in life, are they really as hopeless as we think? She didn't ask me that to diminish in any way the despair we'd seen, rather, she - like me, longed to understand the depths of it.  

I didn't have a great answer. All I could say was I know it's impossible to dream when your stuck in a space that longs for food and shelter. Shouldn't the world - all of the world - have at least that same starting line for their dreams and imagination? Is it at all possible for a young child to dream of changing the world when they are persistently stuck in the part of the world that needs so desperately changed? Because after all, that is what my friend and I were doing there - on some level we were both chasing our dreams of changing the world. 

I'm a Christian. In line with my faith, I believe we were all created by the same God. I think one of the luxuries of my personal faith is I've never had to ask myself - or God - at least in a hard and heartfelt way, why do our dreams have to begin at such different starting lines. On the way down the mountain, I imagined one of those older children, his or her smile long departed, asking me - why did God create my starting line so much further back than yours?

The fact that no child actually uttered those words made them no less in my face. And the fact that there were no actual words to respond to made it no less an obligation for me to respond. 

As the question kept echoing, all I kept hearing was that's not the way it's supposed to be. 

I began wondering, what if this gross gap I was experiencing between the haves and the have nots wasn't God's will, but instead a representation of our unwillingness to close that gap. What if that gap is a measurement of how much we focus on our own personal finish lines at the expense of the world's collective starting lines. 

As a Christian, standing in Honduras, it was hard to ignore the reality that Jesus spent all of his ministry going toward the people who were suffering most. Jesus never asked his father - why are the starting lines so different; he just kept devoting the entirely of his life to moving them forward. 

I've shared this before, but it means more to me now. I live with a fear that Americans will one day arrive at God's door. With his face glowing in our presence, we'll express what we've always wanted the chance to express to Him. Thank you. Thank you for blessing our country. Thank you for mercifully allowing us to be one of the lucky ones. 

But then God, his face stoic, will look at us and say, you were never blessed, you were never lucky - you were always responsible.

Now let's talk about how you honored that responsibility.

Maybe that sounds grim, but here's another part of that story. I've had many friends reach out to me who saw the pictures of me with the young children in Honduras. All of them have said, I've never seen you look so happy. And the truth is, I rarely have been. Maybe Jesus was marching town to town not only to move starting lines forward - but to also show us the way to personal happiness. 

Maybe he was showing us the way to happiness is not reaching our own finish lines, but investing in the rest of the world's starting lines. I've already said, ours is a country mired in sadness. So, maybe a new approach to happiness is worth considering. 

It was a 2-hour drive from the airport to the guesthouse where our Honduras team stayed. On that drive, taking everything in I could, two things became clear to me. 

First and foremost, watching the late afternoon chapters of the Honduran people's lives roll along on the other side of the van windows, I knew I was witnessing the heart and soul of poverty. I have read about poverty, seen pictures of it, intellectually grasped it, but in that moment I could feel just how protected I'd been from everything I'd learned about it.

​In that moment I wasn't living poverty, but I felt it in a way I never had before. 

The other thing that was clear - it's a special group of people that are willing to part with their own protections to experience poverty together. As I got to know some of my teammates on that drive, I knew I was with people who shared some longing to bridge the gap between the hurting and the healers.   
That first night together, our team gathered around a large table after we'd eaten. We were all exhausted from traveling, but our awesome Soles4Souls leader Tiffany forged us through some brief introductions. One of those introductions, for me personally, set the tone for the rest of the week. 

As part of the introductions, we were all given a question to answer. Mine asked me to name 5 places I'd like to visit. I guess I was so caught up in being in a place I never thought or dreamed I'd be in, that I could only think of 3. And for the life of me, now I can't even remember the 3 I said. 

Sitting next to me was Raul Carrasco. Raul was our main Honduran trip leader. Raul was asked "what motivates you?" As I watched Raul, I could see him deeply considering his answer. I saw a look come over his face that I didn't understand at the time - but now I do. 

Before I tell you Raul's answer, I need to tell you a little about him. 

Raul grew up like many young men in Honduras. His life was defined by a broken family, violence and gangs. But one day a friend told Raul  
something that changed his life: "Raul, you think you are alone. You think God doesn't listen to you or love you. You are wrong." Those words became the hope Raul clung to as he searched for a more hopeful path. 

​The path he found was mixed martial arts (MMA). Raul would go on to become a MMA champion in Honduras. And in discovering the power of faith and a healthy mind and body and spirit through the sport, Raul discovered an opportunity to help young men in Honduras take a different course in life than he took.

On our last day in Honduras, we got to visit Raul's gym. The gym is a branch of the World Compass Foundation he founded. Here, in partnership with his brother Allan, Raul uses jiu jitsu to guide young men - "soul-diers" - down a more hopeful path. 

We visited many places in Honduras where it was clear the people there love Raul. Why they do is found in the answer he gave to his question.

What motivates you Raul?

​He said:
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​"I'm motivated by the pain of my people." 

​The next day we were doing a shoe distribution. More children than expected showed up to receive shoes. It became clear we wouldn't have enough shoes for all of them - there were more distributions planned in other communities - so we had to establish a cutoff. For our team, that was heartbreaking. But in Raul, I saw a hurt that ate at me - and continues to - in a way I'm not sure I've ever been eaten. 

Because Raul spoke their language, he was the one who had to break it to the children and families that, essentially, some will get shoes - some will not. As Raul would tell us later, those little children don't understand budgets and the limits of shoe collections and dividing shoes up among other communities. They only know he or she got shoes, and I didn't. In a country where "getting" is so rare, it's painful for a child to see their rare opportunity drive away from them in a cloud of dust. 

For a man motivated by the pain of his people, that pain is even deeper. 

As sad as that was to witness, it helped me discover a beauty in Raul I wish I could discover in more people. Especially people in my country. 

In Honduras, the pain of the people isn't hard to see. It's in their eyes, it's written all over their aging and often underdeveloped biologies. In Honduras, life is all about helping each other navigate pain - I suppose that's why you see them leaning in to each other more than you see them leaning in to anything else. 

I couldn't help but think about my home - America. My country is in the midst of the greatest suicide and drug overdose epidemic of America's lifetime. My home is full of pain. In many ways, I would argue, even though the pain is different, it's every bit as prevalent as the pain in Honduras. 

In America, though, we are motivated by the pursuit of prosperity - living out the American Dream. We have branched off, away from one another, and as individuals we are chasing down individual ideals of success and happiness. The result, we are a country that has been overcome by loneliness and sadness and depression. We are a country that is better fed, better sheltered and better taken care of by almost any health measure than Honduras. But are we hurting any less?

Because we are motivated by individual prosperity and not the pain of our people, we overlook each other's pain. Because engaging in someone else's pain risks derailing our own pursuit of happiness - too often we ignore it. Whether intentional or not, when it comes to personal pain and suffering, we've been conditioned to keep each other at an arm's distance. 

Don't ask. Don't tell. 

In Honduras, I saw people embracing each other's pain. I saw them embracing each other. Maybe that's the uncomfortable beauty of owning pain, of it being so in your face. When you can't run from it, when you can't pretend pain's not there, when human connection is the only answer for healing it, you become motivated by the pain of your people. You pull people in tight, right up against you; in that world an arm's distance comes to define loneliness. 

Don't get me wrong. Honduras isn't a haven of people walking arm and arm singing songs of hope, although we did hear some singing. They so desperately need our help. No country, no people group, should be forced to live life with so few of the necessities of life. 

But in many ways, I believe the Honduran people are closer than we are to discovering the key to life: life is about learning to navigate the path of pain, not discovering the road to prosperity. It's in that discovery that we come to rely on each other for common good, and not see each other as the competition for personal prosperity. 

It's in that discovery that we become motivated by the pain of our people. ​

Back in the fall of 2018, I interviewed Souls4Soles CEO, Buddy Teaster, for a running podcast I was doing at the time. I'd Google stalked some of Buddy's story, discovered he was an ultra runner, and since I had aspirations of becoming an ultra runner myself, I thought he'd be a great interview.

​Well I was right.

​He was. 
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Because I came out of that interview fired up to tackle something much bigger than a 100-mile trail race. I came out of it wanting to go to Honduras. ​😯

OK, maybe "wanting to go to Honduras" slightly overstates my enthusiasm. But after Buddy gave me the history of his running journey, he told me the history of Souls4Soles. He told me how the organization had gone from being primarily a relief agency to one now committed to wearing out poverty. 

To be honest, when I first heard Buddy say "wearing out poverty", I felt like I was reading one of those inspirational messages you see on a sign in front of your local church. It's hopeful and heartwarming when you read it, but then you drive on. And by the time you exit the Starbucks drive-through, knocked down a sip or two of your first pumpkin spice latte of the year, you've forgotten poverty exists outside of - well - church signs. 

But then Buddy told me about their model: collect shoes people no longer want or need, get them in the hands of entrepreneurs in developing countries, the entrepreneurs then start small businesses that support their struggling families and allows them to reinvest in more shoes. And repeat.

Buddy was describing the teach them to fish bumper sticker come to life. 

Then he told me about their travel program. The program is designed to give people who collect or donate shoes an opportunity to go see the countries where their shoes are making an impact. Buddy told me how transparency was important to him and the Soles4Souls team. Well, encouraging people to follow their shoes a few thousand miles to developing countries to experience the impact firsthand, that was a pretty strong testament of transparency to me. 

Here's the thing, though. My comfort has always been rooted in developed countries. I once asked God if I could have some "serve the poor" extra credit because my wife took a trip to Haiti. I mean, it doesn't get much closer to me actually making the trip myself does it, God?

​At the time, I thought he did what I often sense him doing in response to my rather thoughtless musings. I thought he shook his head and moved on to the people who were actually going to Haiti. But then I found myself on the Souls4Soles website, searching for trips, and there it was. Honduras. 
So God said there's only one way to discover the true narrative, and it's not by riding the coattails of your wife's journey. It's time for a journey of your own. 
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I'm not sure what I expected to feel when we landed in Honduras. According to some, I should have felt fear. Given that for a few days I was trading in many of the relative luxuries of the world for relative discomfort, feeling some anxiety would have been natural.

​But really, all I felt was intense curiosity. 

What does a country look like that's still developing?

What do people look and sound and feel like who are in the middle of this development?
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How much different is reading about poverty than walking along the dirty and dusty roads where the poor live?

One of the first answers to my curiosity came moments after leaving the airport. Looking out the window of our van, I saw a large stadium. For some reason the view was soothing. I think the Estadio Olimpico Metropolitano
was the first thing I saw that said the developing world isn't completely different than the developed world. Given our love for sports in America, I saw a shared passion in that stadium. 

In the months leading up to this trip, I'd focused a lot on how much we are all different. In this moment, though, looking out at a stadium rising high above a people clearly in need, I began to focus on all that we have in common. 
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Over the next few entries in this series recapping my journey to Honduras, I hope I can capture that. Because I feel it stronger than I ever have. As much as we try to define each other by our collective differences, we are all very much the same.

Focusing on our differences is poisonous. Embracing each other for our common humanity - that is healing. My prayer is that sharing my thoughts about this journey will point us a little closer to the healing. ​