Well, we’ve been working in Phuket, Thailand
for the past three weeks and I’ve been pretty lax in keeping up with my
blogs. We’ve partnered with a ministry
here, called SHE (Self Help and Empowerment) that works with women and children
who are at risk. The ministry is just
starting to take off and there are four girls that have left their jobs in the
bars to work with Mark and Sharon Biddell making jewelry and cards. The Lord is moving in this place.
We spend our free time with the girls, attempting to make
jewelry and cards and laughing with them.
They are reminders of why this ministry is so important.
We witnessed Thailand’s
Mother’s Day and watched the girls stop for a moment to sit around Sharon and bless her with
flowers and tears. I sat on the outside,
looking in with awe at how awesome our Lord is.
Sharon
has been working with the girls for months-entering their worlds, giving love-
unconditionally, and offering them a new life in exchange for the old. The girls thanked Sharon for loving them and honored her as
their spiritual mother. It was one of
the simplest ways that I’ve seen the Lord glorified through one woman’s
devotion to Him and through her heart to see things change in this world.
Sometimes it’s so easy to lose sight of the vision and
purpose the Lord has for us in each place that we travel to. It seems like we jump into a ministry and
move on before we even realize where we are.
Coming alongside people like Mark and Sharon and watching them live discipleship
serves as a fabulous reminder of what the church is called to.
Living discipleship isn’t always easy. It sometimes requires getting messy and doing
things that don’t necessarily make sense.
But as the body of Christ, it’s time that we started doing things that
look like Jesus, but don’t necessarily make sense. It may require moving
outside of the four walls that make our services safe. The doors of the church might need to be
ripped from the threshold and taken out to the street where the drunk and
prostitute are wallowing in sin, crying out to be rescued. They aren’t aware, but their hearts are
searching for something more… there must be something better… something more…
they haven’t found it in the bars or the lust because the church hasn’t moved
outside of the safety of the building to actually live the gospel like Jesus
did. He loved people, exactly where they
were… exactly as He found them. And He
wasn’t ashamed to associate with them in their mess. He was in every way human like us, but he
lived in such a way that defied the standards of this world. It’s time church…
