Hey there friends!!! As you know, i’m currently living on Penang Island in Malaysia. Ministry has looked different every day here. Some days I wake up and I don’t even know what I’ll be doing that day! I’m learning to really fall in love with spontaneity and not knowing what each day will hold! So much freedom in letting go of plans.
Some things we’ve been doing:
Working, cooking, cleaning, and talking to people at a homeless shelter
Sorting through clothes at a Christian thrift store below our hostel (and copping some noice finds along the way)
Taking a ferry to the mainland to work with a couple who run an english center! We clean, organize, pass out flyers, and hang out with their kids while the guys teach a Muslim man english.
Painting the house of a family who is living and serving Jesus long term here. They are moving houses to be closer to the heart of Penang and create a space that invites people into their family and glorifies the Lord.
Today, we buttered bread, painted Christmas themed rocks with some kids, and cooked lunch for people at the homeless shelter. This morning when i woke up, i was feeling exceptionally more tired than usual and i was just in a big ole funk. I didn’t really feel like talking to any of the visitors or really engaging my heart in ministry. I just wanted to sit with my teammates and be comfortable and get the job done so i could take a nap. After we served the plates for lunch and cleaned the kitchen, i felt somewhat accomplished. I thought, “wow, even on the days i don’t feel great, I was still able to do all of this? Yeah you’re welcome God.”
Haha. Okay maybe it didn’t go quite like that in my head, but somewhere in my head I did feel pretty self-righteous about all the work I had just put in. A real kingdom bringer.
As we were about to leave, Uncle Ben (the man who runs the Kawan Center) gave us a giant bag of cheese crackers just because He’s a generous man like that. I walked back home holding my cheese crackers feeling real good about myself. But as we approached the steps of our hostel, the Holy Spirit took a hold of my heart.
A little backstory: There’s a man named Rajan that lives right next to the stairs of our hostel. He’s homeless, special needs, and he’s a sweetheart. He’s gone during the day, but every night when we come home, he’s sitting there with nothing but shorts on and chilling on his piece of cardboard. He always says hello, always starts friendly conversation the best that he can, and always high fives you. If you’re lucky, he’ll even kiss your hand.
His catchphrase is: “Very gud!” accompanied by two thumbs up.
Even though Rajan is typically very kind, I had noticed that the past couple nights he had been clearly drunk. He wasn’t his usual happy self, his words slurred together, and he seemed angry whenever we talked to him. I had become colder to him, slightly assuming he was an alcoholic simply because he was homeless and drunk once.
This could be true, but who am I to assume I know his circumstances or his story? His behavior is no cause for me to treat or love him differently. When we got back after ministry today, I didn’t even want to make eye contact with him. But as I did, he lifted his hands to his mouth, clearly signing that he was hungry. I knew I had crackers in my hand to feed him, but i felt reluctant to hand them over, almost as a payback for his drunkenness. In that moment, the Lord fully humbled me. What is the point in going to serve at a homeless shelter all day only to return home and turn my head from the homeless man sitting in front of me? Matter of fact, what is the point in doing ANYTHING if my heart is not engaged with the Fathers, doing everything out of His abundant love?
I handed over the crackers with everything in me. Basically threw them at my homie Rajan because I was so sickened by my own self-righteousness, bitterness, and greediness.
As I walked up the stairs, it hit me. The truth is, if i don’t do everything i do in LOVE, there’s NO FREAKING POINT. Truly. If I can’t love the poor, I can’t love the Father. The Word says I can’t even enter the Kingdom of Heaven(Proverbs 14:31). Doing “ministry” without first seeking the Father’s heart in it all is no different than an atheist doing humanitarian work. It holds no eternal value.
“And if I were to be so generous as to give away everything I owned to feed the poor, and to offer my body to be burned as a martyr, without the pure motive of love, I would gain nothing of value.”
??1 Corinthians? ?13:3
Am I living out of love? Do I believe Jesus when He said, “what you have done for the very least of these, you have done for me” (Matthew 25:40)?
I have to. I have to believe it. Without love, this life I’m living is completely worthless.
“Let all that you do be done in love.”
1 Corinthians 16:14
In love and gratitude,
KT
