Filed under: Lessons Learned
When I was growing up my family did not attend church. We went a couple of times in those early years. You know…Easter, Christmas, funerals, weddings. It was not until I was 8 years old that I was introduced to Jesus Christ.
We were living in an apartment complex. Every Sunday and Wednesday a local church sent a bus into our neighborhood to pick up any children that wanted to go. Since the bus driver treated everyone to Dunkin Doughnuts after service, I was all too eager. One of the women I met was named Judy. She took my sister and I under her wing. After Wednesday night AWANA Club she would often drive us home. I remember one evening when Judy was driving. We were speeding down a busy highway. I thought it would be funny to yell “red light”. When I did she began to come to a stop. Once she realized the light was still green she continued on. She then thanked me for reminding her how she needed to pay attention to the road more than what was going on inside the car! I remember being dumbfounded! My Mother would have scolded me good. She would have lectured me for the next five minutes on what I had done wrong, and that attitude would have encouraged me all the more to try and get on her nerves. It was Judy’s patience and kindness that led me at 8 years old to want to know the God she served. It was one of those defining moments in life!
Fast forward to today. I have been working with a couple of refugee families for a few months now. And at times it has been exhausting! There have been a few days I wanted to go home, shut the blinds, and pull the covers over my head!! And I did. But I have found something different at work in my life lately. LOVE!!! This powerful love that has allowed me to lay down every expectation I have of these people and just serve them. You see…they have lived a life I cannot even begin to imagine. So when they horde everything they are given, and then lie and say they need more; well….the justice side of me wants to make them understand just why they can’t do that. When I see them spending their money frivolously, instead of paying their bills, and mind you, I know that money is coming from my hard earned tax dollars. Well, I really want to jump on that! Oh, but the love, mercy, and grace of God has melted my heart once again. I don’t need to protect my stuff. Even if the motive of their hearts is to take advantage or lie or whatever. If I realize that nothing is more important than they are, and if everything I have I freely give, then nothing they say, do, or any way they act is not going to change my attitude of love toward them!
It is not my job to save these people! It is not my job to change these people! It is my job to serve them and to love them. That is what Judy did with me all those years ago. She realized I had come from a place she did not understand and all she could do was serve me and love me, and that led me to Christ! God has and will continue to give me opportunity and seasons to speak into these lives. And prayerfully they will come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, but until that day I will continue to learn just how much the Father loves me as I give away all that I have to them!
Filed under: Meet Our Friends
As is usual for me these days, I awoke with my mind full of ways I can better help my new friends; Burmese refugees. I spent the morning on the Internet, educating myself about their plight. Where have I been my whole life? Have I been so caught up in my small world that I missed what was going on all around me? I admit that my life before coming to Christ was all about me, but I have been a Christian for 23 years now. I have come to feel so shallow in the last few months as I am seeing more and more how blessed I have been in my life and how little I have given. I use to feel good when I gave my tithe. And especially when my offering came out of my account every month! Now I am sickened as I realize how much of that really went for the spreading of the gospel (the good news!), and how much went to continue in the building of our monuments to what man can accomplish. I want to build the kingdom with people, not use people to build kingdoms! OK, I’ve said enough about that. I want you to meet one of my new friends.
John (not his real name of course) is 25 and has been in this country for about five months. He was able to learn a good deal of English before coming and is eager to learn all he can. I am still not sure how people are chosen to be able to come to America, but he came, even though it meant leaving behind his entire family! He hopes they will come soon, but in the mean time he works and saves, awaiting their arrival. He shares an apartment with another single man. They both work entry level jobs, which means hard labor for minimum pay. But I have yet to hear him complain. He is grateful for the opportunity to have a future! Since John knows the way to have what he needs is to work and save he has chosen to forgo the bus fare card and instead rides his bike thirty minutes to and from work. He has also begun to study for his GED and driver’s license. Not only is he diligent in his work and studies, but he is also kind and gentle.
I cried this morning as my husband and I read of the lives of the Burmese refugees. I put myself in the shoes of a mother, watching her 25 year old son leave for a far away place. I thought of this young man who has no family member to wrap their arms around him and comfort him at a moments notice. I thought about how cold and rainy it was last night as he rode his bike home from work, somewhere around midnight. And I pray! I pray he will stay healthy. That he will not be mugged, as he lives in a community notorious for crime. But most of all I pray he will see Christ as we give ourselves to serve him. That he will know the peach that passes understanding, and the hope of life, far better than just coming to America.
I think it is comical now; what I have been led to believe witnessing was all about. I could fill a chapter in a book. I am beginning to understand that my witness is the love of God in me for my fellow man. It begins with the tangible things I can do. Like buying a pair of long underwear so John can stay warm on his nightly bike trip to and from work.
I have so much in my heart to write about. I want to write more about my new friends and what I have learned about the love and witness of Christ. And mostly, I want my ramblings to entice others to join me on this journey of being a true disciple of Jesus Christ as we give ourselves away in the building of His glorious kingdom with people from every tribe and tongue! And in America, these people are moving into our backyard!
