Looking Through My Daddy’s Eyes

Also, I am walking into this month with a new team: Two of my previous team members Alison Gray and Chip Carnes; and now I have an addition of three more Amanda Kerr, Tyler Vessels, and Kaitlyn Wolff. I love my new brother and sisters. There is such a fresh new dynamic with this team and we mesh so well together. I believe for this next season in our journey, God has placed each of us together to help add and complete the work he has begun in us these past couple of months. I love that we can laugh, cry, be honest, and vulnerable around each other, and share a love and a bond that only God can give. 

Ministry this month looks like this: We are working with several different ministries this month so we alternate between them, Kwan, Kwan Coffee Shop, Adventist Hospital, and Evangelism.  With the Kwan ministry we go there several days a week and assist in their homeless outreach. This is a place where those less fortunate can come rest, get cleaned up, and have a good meal to prepare them for their day. Seeing the people that come through gives me a new meaning of what the joy of the Lord can give. These people don’t have much and they don’t even know how they will sustain with the little they have, but they have such a ray of joy in their heart. They come in, and we joke, laugh, and just enjoy the time we share. Of course there is a little language barrier, but I never knew a SMILE could go so far and carry so much meaning.

Also, some of my teammates will be helping in the new Kwan coffee shop, helping around the café and engaging and interacting with the customers. The customers that come through the café are from the local university, so it’s a wonderful opportunity to build relationships and share the gospel in an environment that’s comforting and relaxed.

At the Adventist Hospital here in Penang, we are assisting with fundraising for heart patients who cannot afford transplants and for the new addition of the cancer center. I know all to well about fundraising! But it’s been a fun experience thus far, and also we will be working with the hospital chaplain visiting and comforting patients. To put the “icing on the cake” I love we get a little volunteer badge and a green vest to wear, I look very official!

One of my favorite ministries so far is Wednesday night evangelism. This is when we all go out to different parts of Penang and minister on the busy streets to whomever God leads us to. This looks different all the time, but for me last week I went with one of our contacts wife and several others to the lower class of the city.  All I knew was we are going to be ministering to prostitutes. I didn’t know what to expect, how I would feel, what I was doing, all I knew was I wanted to go. As we headed to the dark alley we met up with a row of women sitting on stools, some standing waiting on their next customer. The men would circle on their mopeds, some more discrete then others searching and looking intently at their choices for the night. 

Whoa… what a site to see and a place to be in. I didn’t know how I should feel or how I should act.  The women looked so desperate and some were so high because they didn’t want to face reality of their actions, they just wanted to escape. I didn’t know what to do, if I should stand in front of the women, like the blocker in air hockey game so the men would overlook them, yell at them and tell them how bad of a person they are, or what. There were so many things running through my head, I turned to God like hmmmm… HELP ME! In that instance, such a peace and joy fell on me. I had the biggest, kind of painful smile on my face that could not and would not go away. God had instantly given me such a joy and love for the men and the women I saw. I wasn’t looking at their actions and thinking about the bad things they were doing anymore, I was looking now at men and women who are a child of God, who is deeply and unconditionally loved by their Father.

The women that I met that night are precious to the Father, in Proverbs 3:15, it states,” she is more precious than rubies, and none of the things you desire can compare with her”.  Just like the Father cares for me he also cares for them, and he will continue to draw near to them just like he wants us to draw near to him. They didn’t need anyone to preach to them or tell them what they were doing is wrong, they already know, they needed someone to talk to them, encourage them, and to look at them with the eyes of the Father. Some of them felt hopeless and feel like this is the only way to provide for there families, but I know of a God that can bring hope to the hopeless, is a provider, and shows a love that last forever. As I looked into their eyes that’s what I saw; children to the most high, beautiful daughters, and joy in knowing that one day they will realize their worth and their inheritance that they have in Christ Jesus. Remembering that day when he died on the cross for us, he made an oath and covenant that will last for eternity that no one can take away.