Hello to yous from the Top End of the Land
Downunder! We’re enjoying our time in Australia so far, despite the heat. The
girls of Team Waka and Team Tandem are serving together at the Christian
Outreach Center (COC) in Darwin while all the guys of our squad are off doing
manly things together as they serve with another ministry in the area.
COC is a hostel where a lot of aboriginal
people come to stay when they’re in town for medical appointments and visits to
the hospital. (I’ve never seen people with skin this dark before!) Many of the
regular staff at COC are on vacation these next couple weeks so we’ve been
helping to fill in the gaps with housekeeping, grounds work and stuff in the office
and kitchen. Most days I’ve been changing sheets and getting rid of cobwebs as
I clean rooms with an awesome Chinese lady named Rainbow. Ants and spiders
don’t faze me anymore – no matter how big they are! (I suppose it actually
started last month when we ate that tarantula.)
Doing battle with spiders and dirt all day
has given me lots of time to think. This past week, God has been teaching me
how important it is to dwell on things that are true, noble, right, pure,
lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy – like Philippians 4:8 tells us
to – especially in relation to my thoughts about other people. It’s made me a
lot more aware of all the thoughts I think about others that are judgmental or
simply untrue.
One of the verses that our team is
memorizing this week has been popping into my head almost every day as I
encounter these thoughts. It’s Romans 12, verse 9, which says, “Love must be
sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good.” I always used to think that
hating what is evil meant avoiding people who might lead you astray but I’m
starting to see that it points to something deeper.
We’ve heard several comments about
aboriginal people since we’ve gotten here. Most of them being pretty negative,
I was a little nervous about interacting with then. Now that I’ve gotten to be
around aboriginal people for a couple weeks and have discovered how awesome
they are, I’m reminded once again of how negative stereotypes really don’t do
anyone any good.
The thoughts that we have about people have
a lot of influence over our behavior towards them. Be they strangers,
teammates, friends or family, negative thoughts about others have a way of
putting a wedge in your relationship with them.
Forgive the corny analogy but, it’s about
cleaning house in your mind. Hating what is evil in your thoughts towards
others, you get rid of the dirt and junk: those negative thoughts that only
bring division. And when you cling to what is good in your thoughts towards
others, choosing to think about the things that are true and noble and lovely
and all that, you’re making room for things like love and grace and forgiveness.
Like every other month, I’m finding that it
all boils down to love. 1 Corinthians 13 says that love always protects. So
here’s the question of the day: Are we protecting our relationships from
thoughts that might harm them?
