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It’s hard to tell just what goes where or how big things are when looking at pictures from our Guatemala trips.

Therefore, I’ve put together a 360° panorama of Eliza Martinez (it’s actually closer to 400° as there is some overlap at the left and right edges of the image) from the view of the courtyard, where we seem to spend most of our time with the boys (when we’re outside).

Clicking on the image below should open the panorama in a new window. You may have to click it again to get it to show full size.

Too tired (and emotionally spent) to write. Here’s some pics from today.

Internet is spotty where we’re staying so who knows how infrequent our updates will be.

After a 13-hour travel day (up at 2am, leave home at 3am, get to Indianapolis airport at 4am, leave Indy at 6am, arrive in Atlanta at 7am, board for Guatemala at 9:30am only to find our plane had a leak, disembark, board a new plan and leave at noon, arrive at 3:30pm (2:30pm local time), we had some time to grab lunch then, on the way back to the baby’s home (where we’re staying, the baby’s have vacated to various locations and to foster care) we stopped to visit with Dani.

Dani seemed to be fitting in very well at his new home. When we arrived he was chatting and playing with the other kids. We entertained the boys with fart sounds and the old “quarter behind the ear” trick.

Rachael ended up showing a video that was on her camera of Juan Pablo to Dani who started talking to the camera as if it were Juan Pablo, telling him how much he missed him.

Thanks to _gee_ for the image.

When is the last time you thought (or said) that to yourself?

“Such-and-such person keeps doing this and that to me. I’m done forgiving them.”

If I recall, Christ gave you a second chance. And me. And everyone you see and rub shoulders with every single day.

In fact, there isn’t anyone you’ll see today that Christ didn’t die for. Wrap your brain around that one.

But some days it’s easy to just say, “I’ve had enough. I’m done.”

Check out a snippet of what Sarah Cunningham, author and blogger, has to say about being a Person of the Second Chance:

Letting go did not come natural to me.
There was stuff in my background that made not tracking other people’s offenses counter-intuitive.
But I really and completely let it go.
And it felt FABULOUS. (Still does.)

I even threw 50 fancy musings on forgiveness into my first book from my learning.
They were genuine insights then. Still are.
But…I still struggle (honest translation: fail) to apply them in these other two situations.
(Can you sense the hypocrisy yet…?)

As it turns out, given the right circumstances (and I mean, the WRONG circumstances), my mercy can still (even after all this learning) operate on a light switch that goes on and off with a flick of my pointing, accusing index finger.

For this, mercy on.
For that, mercy off.
I’m like the forgiveness clapper.

Yowza. Does any of that describe you? It does me. Big time.

Catch up with Sarah’s full article called People of the Zero Chance. You should also check out the People of the Second Chance, too.

How will you change your forgiveness habits today?

Just in case you weren’t around for my trip to Guatemala last October, here’s all the pictures I took in slideshow format.