Compassion International is in Peru this week. Twice yearly Compassion sends out a team of bloggers to bring back stories from one of the 26 countries Compassion serves. Compassion serves two million children worldwide and 55,000 of them reside in Peru.
I've been following these trips since 2010, when Kristin Welsh traveled to the slums of Kenya, revealing the worst physical poverty imaginable. That trip changed both her heart and mine, forever. A year after her trip she opened a home in Kenya for abused, orphaned, pregnant teens. And for my part, I resolved to never stop writing about abject poverty. I will do it until my fingers and my voice take their final rest, no matter how uncomfortable it makes people, and it does do that.
Your heart will squirm and you won't know what to think, much less say or do. And that not knowing might last a couple years, depending on your own level of wealth. Some people have enough wealth that sponsoring five or ten children doesn't change their lifestyle, so the decision is easy. The less wealth you have, the more you won't know what to do because the little you have won't seem like enough. Never make that mistake. Sponsoring even one child can change a whole community significantly. Some people have such tight budgets that $38 a month will seem impossible. But with God, nothing is impossible.
You give, and then watch your own needs be met. Not necessarily your wants, but your needs. It's part of God's promise in Matthew 6:33: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (These things refers to food, clothing, shelter.)
Enormous progress has been made in fighting abject poverty in the last 50 years. A day will come when this problem won't be the world's most pressing. That day will come and it starts with you.
No trip since Kenya has equaled it in terms of the depth of poverty revealed, but the stories continue to change me. I've not yet experienced a Compassion trip to Haiti, but I imagine the physical poverty is similar there and perhaps even worse than Kenya, due to Haiti's 2010 earthquake.
We can't really understand what Jesus wants from us until we're exposed to abject poverty, either first-hand or through story and pictures. If the writer is good enough, it will seem like you're there too.
I urge you not to run. Don't refuse to click the first time, and don't refuse to click subsequent times. We need to know what Jesus wants. Residing in the first world is not life as most humans know it. We have everything, and yet we're missing so much.
Deut. 15:7. If there is a poor man among you, one of your brothers, in any of the towns of the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.
Read the stories coming out of Peru this week and learn what you're missing. And what you can do.
Clicking the Peru banner at the top of my blog will take you to the stories too.
Matthew 25:41-4641 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
I've been following these trips since 2010, when Kristin Welsh traveled to the slums of Kenya, revealing the worst physical poverty imaginable. That trip changed both her heart and mine, forever. A year after her trip she opened a home in Kenya for abused, orphaned, pregnant teens. And for my part, I resolved to never stop writing about abject poverty. I will do it until my fingers and my voice take their final rest, no matter how uncomfortable it makes people, and it does do that.
Your heart will squirm and you won't know what to think, much less say or do. And that not knowing might last a couple years, depending on your own level of wealth. Some people have enough wealth that sponsoring five or ten children doesn't change their lifestyle, so the decision is easy. The less wealth you have, the more you won't know what to do because the little you have won't seem like enough. Never make that mistake. Sponsoring even one child can change a whole community significantly. Some people have such tight budgets that $38 a month will seem impossible. But with God, nothing is impossible.
You give, and then watch your own needs be met. Not necessarily your wants, but your needs. It's part of God's promise in Matthew 6:33: But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. (These things refers to food, clothing, shelter.)
Enormous progress has been made in fighting abject poverty in the last 50 years. A day will come when this problem won't be the world's most pressing. That day will come and it starts with you.
No trip since Kenya has equaled it in terms of the depth of poverty revealed, but the stories continue to change me. I've not yet experienced a Compassion trip to Haiti, but I imagine the physical poverty is similar there and perhaps even worse than Kenya, due to Haiti's 2010 earthquake.
We can't really understand what Jesus wants from us until we're exposed to abject poverty, either first-hand or through story and pictures. If the writer is good enough, it will seem like you're there too.
I urge you not to run. Don't refuse to click the first time, and don't refuse to click subsequent times. We need to know what Jesus wants. Residing in the first world is not life as most humans know it. We have everything, and yet we're missing so much.
Deut. 15:7. If there is a poor man among you, one of your brothers, in any of the towns of the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.
Read the stories coming out of Peru this week and learn what you're missing. And what you can do.
Clicking the Peru banner at the top of my blog will take you to the stories too.
Matthew 25:41-4641 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
1 comment:
Perfect scriptures to go with the point!
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