Helping With Heavy Burdens

I have climbed over 17,000 ft passes, I have carried a 50 lb backpack for many weeks through the mountains, I have run half marathons, and I used to consider myself fairly strong...until today. I saw a young girl filling her two water jugs here at the center, and thought I would be nice and offer to help her carry them back to her homestead. I have done this before, but not a container this big. I helped her lift the first container to her head, wishing I had a different way to carry the container I would carry. From my estimation, I would guess there were at least 8 gallons of water in each container (and if I remember right, water weighs 7-8 lbs per gallon), meaning that we were carrying at least 56 lbs of water each. Which may not seem like much except for that the handle of the container was about a quarter of an inch wide, digging into my hand even as I picked up the container for the first time.
So we started the walk to her homestead, about a quarter of a mile away. Within the first 20 yards, my hand was screaming because the pull on my fingers was too much for that small strip of plastic called a handle. She was carrying on a conversation, while balancing the container on her head, while I struggled with each step with my water. When we were about a third of the way there, I realized that it was going to take a lot more than I thought to get the water to her house. My only method of continuing on to her house was to walk about 30 steps with the container in one hand, stop, set it down, switch hands and walk another 30 steps. Throughout the walk I apologized to her for being so slow & having such a hard time. She responded with, “it’s ok. You’re helping me.” Those few words spoke so deep in my heart.
As we continued walking to her homestead, I realized that her words were more than a response to my carrying water, but they were a word from God. There have been many burdens I have seen in the last several weeks, that are too overwhelming to begin to think about carrying, and I can’t comprehend how people do it on a day to day basis. I have struggled with having too high of expectations of myself in entering another culture to serve alongside of what God is doing. Many times I have tried to take on burdens that are much more than I’m meant to carry & I’ve tried to be the savior that no mere human is meant to be. But in these few words from this young girl, it was a reminder that God didn’t call me to carry these burdens, but to introduce people to the One who wants to carry their burdens. He hasn’t called me to be any kind of savior, but rather to point people to the true Savior. And He reminded me that it’s ok that I am slow & make mistakes because this is His thing that He’s doing (and has been doing for thousands of years)...and He’s been generous enough to let me walk with Him in this and somehow help Him in this place for this season.

When I'm 64...

If I remember right, there is a line in that Beatles’ song that says, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?” For some reason that is the song that has come to mind for the last few days as I have gone over to visit Gogo (Grandma) Lily. Gogo Lily is one of my closest neighbors here in Swaziland and had a stroke this summer. Because there isn’t health care here, to provide nursing care, physical therapy, etc. she is left totally dependent on her family on her homestead and whomever else God will provide to take care of her. She has not been able to walk on her own since the stroke, and so she spends most of the days in bed or sitting on the floor by her bed. God has provided for her in a huge way, in the fact that this past month one of the visiting team members from the US was a occupational therapist, who had worked in geriatrics. While she was here for 3 weeks, she was able to find a walker in the community that wasn’t being used. She brought that to Gogo Lily’s every day and started working with her to get her walking again. Gogo Lily has slowly regained her balance and strength, where she could go from one side of the room to the other with the walker, and we have now progressed to where she can go up and down the outside step to her house.
As she continues to progress in her walking, it is great to see how valuable she is to her family still. Her 1 year old granddaughter still naps on a mat in her house, and many of the grandchildren come in and out all day long.
It is hard for me to imagine being in Gogo Lily’s place, totally dependent on the people around me and strangers from around the world to care for me and help me to walk again. But because God is in the equation, yes, Gogo Lily, we still need you and we will still feed you...when you’re 64 (or older)!

Visiting Orphans

What effect does it have on your longings when you think that God says “true religion” is to “visit orphans”?

The effect that it has on me it to make me want to love like Jesus loved and not always be thinking of earthly payoff. Face it, a few kids are cute, but most street kids will be thankless, rude, dirty, diseased, scar-faced, shifty-eyed, lice infested, suspicious, with bad smells and rotten teeth. If we minister mainly for the earthly payoff, we will burn out in a year.

Jesus did not say, “True religion is converting orphans.” He did not say, “True religion is making orphans mature and successful adults.” He said, “True religion is visiting orphans.” Results are God’s business. Obedience is ours. Perhaps when we grasp this, we will be freed from our earth-bound way of thinking and released to minister to the ones who are least likely to thank us.
~ J. Piper (www.desiringgod.org)

Forgotten People

Recently, I was blessed to be able to spend some time in Juarez with some very special kids at an orphanage. These kids, who have been abandoned by their families, are living very tough lives in a city that is known for it's violence and evil. The atrocities that are happening in this town are at times hard to comprehend, and so often when we can't comprehend something, we ignore it. Or we hear the statistics so often that we become too familiar with them and can become numb to them. But as I spent time with these forgotten kids, I was convicted.Convicted because one of the comments I heard from several people in Juarez was that they felt like the church just over the border in the US had become so numb to the deadly statistics that they just forgot about their brothers and sisters who were suffering just miles from where they are living in comfort and safety.
And I am among the guilty! Juarez isn't that far from where I am, yet I haven't even consistently prayed for what is going on there. I confess that I am not prompted to pray enough - even as I read more stories on the killings in Juarez or hear another story on the news.
Not only was I convicted about Juarez, but it also spurred me on to ask what my Juarez is here in Denver. Who are the people who are suffering that I am often overlooking? Who are the people who are suffering that I have become numb to as I hear their stories?
Lord, let me be more like the Samaritan who has compassionate eyes to see those in need, and less like the man who asked "Who is my neighbor?" as he tried to avoid the messiness and danger of getting involved in serving those in need.

Rejoice With Those Who Rejoice

One morning as we were at the care point waiting for the food to be ready for the kids, we started singing a few songs with the preschoolers (any where from 1 yr olds to 6 yr olds). We went through the familiar ones, and then they started singing a song that said,

“The Lord is going to bless someone today....it may be you, it may be me, it may be somebody else.”

I was humbled by the fact that these kids, who have so little, who have been through so much, and who have a very hard life ahead of them are singing about how they can rejoice when others around them are blessed.
So often our first impulse when someone near us is blessed is to ask where our blessing is, or how we can earn it, or what we didn’t do right....yet true community and God-honoring love comes when we put others before ourselves. To be able to truly rejoice when someone else gets blessed, and not ask "why didn't I get that?" To be able to truly grieve with someone who grieves, without our first thought being, "Whew! I'm glad that didn't happen to me!"
God took me half way around the world to teach me through a bunch of preschoolers that I have a long way to go before I can say with integrity that I live out the command in Romans 12:15...

"Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”

Pictures I Didn't Take...

One of my traditions I have started doing on the plane ride home from anywhere is making a list of "Pictures I Didn't Take" on each trip. Most of the times, these are moments when it would just be impersonal and awkward to pull out a camera to take a picture during these special times; others I simply didn't have my camera with me...but for most of them, a camera wouldn't begin to capture the moment! Here are just a few from this trip:

• getting out of the van our last morning at the care point to have a little boy that I had been building relationship with all week walk over to me to pick him up
• knocking that same little boy over later that same day...I was standing at our van talking to our driver, and didn't realize this little boy had walked around the van to follow me, and was about to grab onto my leg, but I didn't see him and turned to walk away from the van and walked right into him.
  
• seeing the red sun set every afternoon over the hills as we drove on the bumpy, dusty, dirt road back to our hotel
• having random strangers and children wave to us as we drove past
  
• talking to myself, to remind myself I was driving in Africa on the left side of the road, as I drove one of the missionary's car to run an errand
• watching the women of the church give gifts to the pastor & his wife (for pastor appreciation Sunday) and pray for a long time over he & his wife
• seeing elementary aged kids caring for their younger brothers & sisters as if they were their parents
• watching a high school girl's eyes light up over the dress she was given
• having the kids allow us as complete strangers wash their faces and give them new & clean clothes to wear
• watching my teammates gently & tenderly wash children's feet
• hearing about the children laying hands on one of the missionaries to pray for her headache to go away
• talking with a hotel employee as I sat outside drinking coffee & reading my Bible one morning
• going on a home-visit where all of the logs holding up the corners of the house were completely missing the bottom 2 feet of the log, and wondering to myself how the house was staying up
• seeing random flowers & signs of life in fields that looked full of dead grass & weeds
• seeing kids play soccer barefoot, stopping every so often to pull a 2 inch long thorn out of their foot
  

Overwhelmed By Needs

Many of you have asked me how I can keep going to these places that are filled with so much brokenness, poverty, death, and sadness. Often I am overwhelmed to the point of tears, and am unable to even describe it in words...but a sermon on Psalm 123 has changed my perspective as I live a life of ministry - surrounded by broken people serving broken people in Christ's name. That sermon has become part of my preparation as I head out on a mission trip....kind of like warming up to "Eye Of The Tiger" before basketball games. So, you can be sure that I'm listening to it on my ipod again today as I fly over the Atlantic ocean!

"To You I lift up my eyes, O You who are enthroned in the heavens! Behold as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God."
~ Psalm 123:2

In ministry, my tendency is to be overwhelmed by all of the needs around me and to lose sight of the specific call that God has given me in each situation. Yet in the midst of this passage, God taught me that in ministry (whether in Colorado or somewhere else in the world), my eyes are to be on HIM, and that will direct my hands to what they need to be doing. A maidservant doesn't just think about all that needs to be done, but rather she watches and learns about her mistress so she can anticipate the needs and be ready to serve before the mistress even has to speak. In the same way, as my eyes (and mind and heart) are focused on the Lord, I will see how He is at work and how He has gifted and called me to respond and join Him in that work.
This is huge for me in ministry, because when there is always more to do, it gives me freedom to do a few things well and to trust that He is calling others to respond to the overwhelming needs around me. It gives me freedom to say no to the areas that He hasn't called me to serve, so that I can say a better yes to the ones He has. And so my prayer today is that again this week I would be faithful to serve in the specific ways He has called me to serve...and that others would respond in obedience as He calls them to serve to meet the needs that they see around them.