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.
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?
yourself to a cause, or giving away your possessions is good and God
calls us to that. (check out Matthew 5:40-42).
instead and that’s really all.
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] 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.
