A seriously great day

It was one of those days that you want to live over again just so you can soak up its goodness a little more. And think of it. When we live one of these incredibly good days, we still haven’t seen anything like what we will experience in the age to come, when we are completely open and love flows without restriction. God is good!

Highlight #1: Praying for the orphanage leaders. David Jones and I have held a daily Bible study for the leaders of the boys’ and girls’ home. This morning our team gathered, and we spent about 20 minutes praying over the five leaders (Zach, Fritz, Marval, Erta, and Navy). It means a lot to them to receive ministry from missionary teams. The focus of everyone’s attention is the kids, as it should be. That made it even more gratifying to bless the leaders with prayer.

Highlight #2: The Beck boys. It has been amazing to watch Spencer and Nathaniel mix with the kids here. When you think about it, it is not all that common for kids to come here on a mission team. So when the orphanage kids saw that there were a couple of boys along, they welcomed the boys very warmly. Spencer and Nathaniel have both mixed in seamlessly with the kids. The girls especially like Nathaniel because he is crazy and makes them laugh. I think Nathaniel is even more crazy than Adeline, who is known to be gwo fou (really goofy). Today Spencer and Nathaniel took part in the Jonah skit for the feeding program. Spencer even played the starring role of Jonah. The boys seem to be loving it here.

Highlight #3: The students became the teachers. I had the privilege of leading the Bible study for the older kids this afternoon. A few of the kids were helping with the feeding program, so they could not attend the Bible study. BTW, I am very happy for the ownership the older kids are taking in the feeding program. Two of the girls who are especially dear to me, Isguerda and Cherley, have become feeding program regulars. I have this fatherly pride kind of feeling toward those two. Well, anyway, they wandered over to say hi after the feeding program and Bible study were finished. One of the boys who had been in the study, Willie B, was standing with me. When the girls asked what we had talked about, I turned to Willie B and said, “Hey, can you explain the lesson to them?” I had used an illustration that involved small espresso cups. One was empty to signify the person who is without God. The other was full of water to represent how God fills us with his Spirit. Willie explained it very clearly, which made my teacher’s heart skip a beat. But the best was yet to come. Willie wandered off, and the girls stayed around because they wanted to talk for a while. Whenever anyone new walked over to us, I had one of the girls explain the lesson. They taught the lesson to perfection! Isguerda taught in Creole to one of the kids. Cherley was our English-speaking teacher. She even taught the lesson to Susan! She would say, “There are two cups, one empty and one full. The empty cup stands for the person who does not have God in his life. The full cup stands for the person who has God in his life and is filled with God’s Spirit. Also, because God’s Spirit lives inside of us, God can speak to us in our hearts and give us good thoughts and ideas of good things to do for people.” And then she would smile with a mixture of embarrassment and pride. I don’t know if I have ever been so happy doing Christian ministry as I was this afternoon.

Highlight #4: Solomon and coconuts. With help from Morgan and David, this evening I led a Bible study for the older boys on the rooftop of the guest house. We talked for close to an hour about the life of Solomon and ended by contrasting the excesses of King Solomon with the humility of King Jesus. The discussion was fruitful and seemed to break some new ground for some of the boys. But again, the best was yet to come. After the study ended, four of the boys stayed behind to talk a little more with Morgan, David, and me. Patrick (who had graciously served as interpreter for the study) extracted four ripe coconuts from the two trees by the back porch of the guest house, and when someone retrieved a butcher knife from the kitchen, Patrick cut open the coconuts. My kids and Ari were also there. The bunch of us shared laughs and feasted on fresh coconut milk and meat. It was one of the coolest things I have ever stumbled into!

If the trip gets any better, I don’t know what I am going to do. There are a few dozen more stories I could tell of teammates doing selfless things for others. Isn’t it wonderful that God’s kingdom consists of love and restoration and the very best stuff of life!

Comments

  1. mjones80November 25, 2009 at 8:49 PM

    I am so happy to hear of the bond you are all creating with both the kids and the leaders! God is doing amazing work inward and outward.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

Ten essential Dallas Willard quotes

Image
This week the church has lost a great saint and a shining light. Dallas Willard succumbed to cancer. As John Ortberg says in a wonderfully written tribute , Willard was brilliant, but "his heart and his life were better than his mind." I thought it would be appropriate to bring out ten quotes that do a pretty good job of getting at what Willard spent his life teaching and working on. 1. This quote states the central problem Willard spent his career working on: "My hope is to gain a fresh hearing for Jesus, especially among those who believe they already understand him. In his case, quite frankly, presumed familiarity has led to unfamiliarity, unfamiliarity has led to contempt, and contempt has led to profound ignorance." (opening paragraph of  The Divine  Conspiracy ) 2. The central problem, restated: "The governing assumption today, among professing Christians, is that we can be 'Christians' forever and never become disciples." ( The Gre...
Read more

Why I have no hope of going to heaven

Image
I have little hope of going to heaven. In fact, I don't even want to go to heaven. Why? Because if we mean by "heaven" the final destination for God's people, then heaven isn't somewhere we go at all. Heaven isn't up in the sky. Heaven is here. When we say "heaven," most people think it's the place you go when you die. You are with God and his people, and you live forever in eternal bliss. The trouble is, that's a half-truth. It's not the biblical hope. Imagine it like this. Say you are living in a house that has been your beloved home for a long time, but it has fallen into disrepair. The plumbing is bad, the roof leaks and the house is infested with termites. You have painted the walls, and you even bought new kitchen appliances. You love the house, but it needs extensive work. Now through the generosity of a rich relative, you suddenly come into an inheritance huge enough that you can have your beloved house completely remod...
Read more

Backpacking at the Dinkey Lakes

Image
I just returned from a backpacking trip in the high Sierras with my dad and oldest son. We packed in an area near Fresno called the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness. Yes, the lakes were dinky, as in small. Most natural alpine lakes are. But the place is really named for a small dog named Dinkey who protected his master by attacking a charging grizzly bear, giving the man time enough to grap a rifle and kill the bear. Dinkey lost his life for his act of heroism, but he was such an inspiration that an entire Sierra wilderness was named after him. Anyway, we visited eight lakes, each of them stunningly beautiful in its own right. The visit was everything we could have hoped. We shared adventure, exploring places we had never been. We fished -- successfully. We swam and goofed off. We enjoyed each other's company. There is nothing like three generations of a family getting large chunks of uninterrupted time together. The bonds between all three of us were strengthened, and for that we are deepl...
Read more

A test of your relationship with God

Do you have the kind of relationship with God that is like a married couple, including fights and spats? That’s the biblical, Jewish picture of a person who really knows God.  At a certain point in life when I was dealing with some major disappointments, I came to the conclusion that it would be better to yell all my frustrations at God than go through a separation and live apart from him. That’s why I love this quote from Lois Tverberg and her quote of Peter Kreeft so much. Trust me, you’ll want to read to the bottom of this discussion of Job.  “Job’s friends were making the mistake that Western Christians do today when we don’t have a Hebraic understanding of the ‘knowledge of God’—da’at Elohim. A Westerner opens the Bible and wants to prove God’s existence and construct a theology to explain God’s nature. We would call that ‘knowledge of God.’ But in Hebrew, to ‘know’ someone was to be familiar with him through experience and relationship, as a wife knows her husband.....
Read more

Connecting with God when it feels like nothing special is happening

Image
I read recently that Facebook has been known to lead to depression. This person just enjoyed a vacation to Hawaii. That person's kids are cuter and apparently don't act up like yours. And that friend over there just won another award. If you're feeling sassy about your life, you join in on the bragging parade. If that little gray cloud is hovering over you reminding you of how things just aren't turning out, Facebook makes it worse. Today I decided to raise my fist in protest by writing a post about the morning my walk with God was less like leaping forward and more like shuffling along. It's like getting on Facebook and posting, "Nothing special happened in my world this morning. You feel me?" This morning I got up and made tea like usual. I sat in my chair like usual. I began my prayer time, like usual, with these words: "You were [God’s] enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself...
Read more