In the Philippines, we’ve been working with this ministry called International Care Ministries (ICM). We go with them to poor communities in and around Dumaguete City to teach recipients of their program a bit about Jesus, christian lifestyle and health education. They receive some rice and learn about things like making your own laundry detergent to save money or using worms to cultivate soil in a vegetable garden.
As we go along and help out, sometimes it’s hard to feel a need for us to be there, I wonder if we’re really contributing. ICM does an incredible job doing what they do already. Here I am, traveling the world to do God’s work and things He’s called me to do but I can’t help but feel a bit stagnant. We don’t speak the language so we can’t contribute during the lesson plan much, we entertain the kids as the parents learn but their understanding is little as we sing songs and teach bible stories. Sometimes we introduce ourselves, give a short testimony or hand out rice, but are we really making that much of an impact?
As time here went by, I started to think a little differently as I looked around at all that was actually going on.
Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. -James 1:27 (NKJV)
notice how the wording here says to ‘visit’ orphans and widows.
Do you think it could be that easy?
Can simply being here make an impact all by itself?
Sure doing more-preparing sermons, working hard and giving a lot of yourself to a cause, or giving away your possessions is good and God calls us to that. (check out Matthew 5:40-42).
and then sometimes, just being there is what God calls us to instead and that’s really all.
These people are truly blessed by simply having us visit them. You can see it in the smiles on their faces, the look in their eyes, the eager handshake they reach for. They don’t see ordinary white Americans. When we stand up in front of a group of people and tell them what we’re doing away from home on this missions trip, when we get up in front of kids and they don’t understand a single word, they don’t just see us as common boring people not making much of a difference…they see that we care about them enough to travel the world, to go to their community and spend time with them. And that’s enough.
[looking deeper]
how does this effect you…don’t you see that you can do this too? Do you understand that you don’t need to travel the world to spend time with widows, orphans and those God loves? Simply giving your time is easy and can be done anywhere. It doesn’t take much effort. No frills. It’s pure and undefiled religion You just have to be willing, take a chance and let God use you. I promise it doesn’t hurt much and turns out way easier than we think most of the time.
why don’t you give it a go?
