I have been leading a small group of high school girls at my church this past year. We started out doing a study on dating and have since moved into going over passages of Scripture more. Sometimes I don't think I connect very well with the girls and what I am trying to teach them. I can get into kind of sermony mode cuz I just want them to get it so bad!!
I have to admit, last night, I didn't want to have Bible study. I was tired. I wanted to workout and go home. I was struggling with some of my own personal issues that made me not want to be around people. But I went because I knew how much they wanted to see each other and it had been about a month since we had been together. So I picked them all up and we had our usual Bible study at Starbucks.
There are several different personalities in this small group, all of which I love dearly. We have the "I really don't care if people think I'm odd and I say whatever comes to my mind and I struggle cuz I really like what the world offers", we have the "I'm smart and silly and trying to live the way God wants me too, but why isn't he giving me what I want", and we have the "I'm quiet and life has been hard and I just want to be a normal teenager girl, but life won't let me". So these personalities all come together one night a week and I try to share Christ with them.
Tonight we talked about taming the tongue and James 3. A convicting passage for all of us. It went well, but I think the main lesson of the night came on the ride home.
I drive all the girls home and this night was a particularly rainy night and a little bit cold. We always pass this McDonalds on the way to one of the girl's houses. It was 9:30pm and I was hungry, so I said to E., "Do you mind if we stop at McDonald's before I drop you off?" I wasn't really taking too much notice of the homeless man outside of McDonald's until E. said, "That's so sad." Now conversations about homeless people is something that has come up several times with these girls. Sometimes I have sensed a lack of understanding about the homeless and therefore a lack of compassion for them. I have tried to explain that we don't know the story of how the homeless person got there, is it so wrong to ask for food if you are hungry, etc. But tonite it was E. who taught me about homeless people.
E. is a highschool girl who had $2 on her. I was an adult with a paying job and a credit card who could have gotten food in 1/2 hour when I got home. But it was E. who said, "Can I buy him something and give it to him on our way back?" And my response was "Of course!" So she spent her $2 on two sandwiches. We walked over to him, her somewhat hesitantly, and she said, "here sir,I got you some sandwiches." And he looked at her in unbelief. He looked as if he might almost cry. He said, to her, "Thank you. Oh, God bless you. Can I give you a hug?" She looked at me, I nodded, and they had a short embrace before we left. When we got in the car, E. was elated and filled with joy at what had just taken place. I was so happy to see her so obedient to the Lord and so satisfied with the encounter He had given her.
It got me thinking though, who was more satisfied, me with my $3 value meal or E. with her widow's mite gift that had her shreaking with joy in my car? I think the answer is obvious. I hope the next time I have to choose between the satisfacation of McDonalds or the satisfaction of joy from serving Christ among us, I choose to have a heart that listens like E. did.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
What I Shared At My Church About AIDS (Wooster, 2008)
My senior of college, I did a program called hunger, HNGR, which stands for Human Needs and Global Resources. It was a 6 month program that I did in Cambodia and I worked with an organization that had a program for AIDS orphans. I spent time visiting with and teaching AIDS orphans English. But I would say my most direct contact with AIDS patients came through going on AIDS homecare visits to see AIDS patients with my Cambodian friend Sarim who was a nurse at the same organization. It was with her that I really saw and experienced what AIDS does to people physically and emotionally.
I went weekly with my friend Sarim on home visits and the longer I went with her, the more she explained to me what the life of someone with AIDS is like in Cambodia. While we were visiting one woman, Sarim told me that the woman who was taking care of her was not family. Her family was ashamed of her and disowned her. Her husband, who most likely gave her AIDS, divorced her and she never got to see her own son. Now this woman who was paid to take care of her was smoking in the corner of the yard while this woman dying of AIDS was lying in a hammock. Its hard to put into words what AIDS had done to her body. But her ribs were poking out of her chest, her eyes were almost swollen shut with puss, her legs and chest had open sores all over them and she could hardly utter a word. I would smile at her because that’s all I knew how to do. I was too afraid to touch her even though you can’t get AIDS just from touching a person. And the next time I saw her, the same line kept running through my head over and over “No one ever touches her. No one ever touches her unless they are paid to.” And so I let go of my fear and I began rubbing her arm and shoulders and she looked at me with an expression, I will never forget. It was gratitude, awe, and relief all in one look. It was in that moment that I realized that I as a follower of Jesus Christ I am not afforded the right to be immobilized by fear. I had to let the Holy Spirit use my hands and my feet to be Jesus to this woman or no one else would.
I became involved in this kind of work because God has place a desire in my heart to help these people and because I didn’t see how I could be a true follower of Jesus and not become involved in the lives of the poor and the needy. People with AIDS definitely are among the neediest. In Cambodia and since then, over and over again I kept reading verses in my Bible about how God cared for the sick and the poor and the lepers, and He did that for peoples physical needs just as much as he did for their emotional and spiritual needs. Galatians 5:6 says, “the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love”. I wanted my life to count and I knew no better way of my faith expressing itself through love than by touching these people and being with them.
This experience has had a huge impact on my life. Working with AIDS patients and seeing how Jesus loves them has become the way I try to see all of those that society and individuals reject. It’s made me know that wherever I am and and whatever I do, I want to express that love to those it is easy to go through life and never acknowledge. That’s why I am involved with Sowing hope, Internationals and that’s why I am going to Africa with our church in a couple of weeks. It’s a big part of why I am planning to go to nursing school. I think that sometimes God allows things to happen in the world to see how His body will respond. I think He is watching and waiting to see His church rise up and be Christ to the world’s rejected and despised.
I went weekly with my friend Sarim on home visits and the longer I went with her, the more she explained to me what the life of someone with AIDS is like in Cambodia. While we were visiting one woman, Sarim told me that the woman who was taking care of her was not family. Her family was ashamed of her and disowned her. Her husband, who most likely gave her AIDS, divorced her and she never got to see her own son. Now this woman who was paid to take care of her was smoking in the corner of the yard while this woman dying of AIDS was lying in a hammock. Its hard to put into words what AIDS had done to her body. But her ribs were poking out of her chest, her eyes were almost swollen shut with puss, her legs and chest had open sores all over them and she could hardly utter a word. I would smile at her because that’s all I knew how to do. I was too afraid to touch her even though you can’t get AIDS just from touching a person. And the next time I saw her, the same line kept running through my head over and over “No one ever touches her. No one ever touches her unless they are paid to.” And so I let go of my fear and I began rubbing her arm and shoulders and she looked at me with an expression, I will never forget. It was gratitude, awe, and relief all in one look. It was in that moment that I realized that I as a follower of Jesus Christ I am not afforded the right to be immobilized by fear. I had to let the Holy Spirit use my hands and my feet to be Jesus to this woman or no one else would.
I became involved in this kind of work because God has place a desire in my heart to help these people and because I didn’t see how I could be a true follower of Jesus and not become involved in the lives of the poor and the needy. People with AIDS definitely are among the neediest. In Cambodia and since then, over and over again I kept reading verses in my Bible about how God cared for the sick and the poor and the lepers, and He did that for peoples physical needs just as much as he did for their emotional and spiritual needs. Galatians 5:6 says, “the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love”. I wanted my life to count and I knew no better way of my faith expressing itself through love than by touching these people and being with them.
This experience has had a huge impact on my life. Working with AIDS patients and seeing how Jesus loves them has become the way I try to see all of those that society and individuals reject. It’s made me know that wherever I am and and whatever I do, I want to express that love to those it is easy to go through life and never acknowledge. That’s why I am involved with Sowing hope, Internationals and that’s why I am going to Africa with our church in a couple of weeks. It’s a big part of why I am planning to go to nursing school. I think that sometimes God allows things to happen in the world to see how His body will respond. I think He is watching and waiting to see His church rise up and be Christ to the world’s rejected and despised.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Some Good Quotes On Mission....
Jean-Paul Heldt:
"There is no longer a need to qualify mission as 'holistic', nor to distinguish between 'mission' and 'holistic mission'. Mission is by definition 'holistic' and therefore 'holistic mission' is, de facto, mission. Proclamation alone, apart from any social concern, may be perceived as distortion, a truncated version of the true gospel, a parody and travesty of good news, lacking relevance for the real problems of people living in the real world. On the other end of the spectrum, exclusive focus on transformation and advocacy may just result in social and humanitarian activism, void of any spiritual dimension. Both approaches are unbiblical;they deny the wholeness of human nature of human beings created in the image of God. Since we are created "whole", and since the Fall affects our total humanity in all its dimensions, then redemption, restoration, and mission can, by definition, only be 'holistic'."
Steve Saint:
"Social services without the Gospel are like pain killers for cancer. But the gospel without the offer of loving compassion will frequently meet only a rejection of God's love which they have not seen, and consequently locked doors."
"There is no longer a need to qualify mission as 'holistic', nor to distinguish between 'mission' and 'holistic mission'. Mission is by definition 'holistic' and therefore 'holistic mission' is, de facto, mission. Proclamation alone, apart from any social concern, may be perceived as distortion, a truncated version of the true gospel, a parody and travesty of good news, lacking relevance for the real problems of people living in the real world. On the other end of the spectrum, exclusive focus on transformation and advocacy may just result in social and humanitarian activism, void of any spiritual dimension. Both approaches are unbiblical;they deny the wholeness of human nature of human beings created in the image of God. Since we are created "whole", and since the Fall affects our total humanity in all its dimensions, then redemption, restoration, and mission can, by definition, only be 'holistic'."
Steve Saint:
"Social services without the Gospel are like pain killers for cancer. But the gospel without the offer of loving compassion will frequently meet only a rejection of God's love which they have not seen, and consequently locked doors."
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