I love outreach days. I love meeting people, hearing stories, and finding connections to people that live miles and miles away from me. (This month I also love outreach days because they are an excuse to be off base, but that’s a whole different thing)
Outreach can look a number of different ways, but usually it is about walking in a community and just starting a conversation. My goal is neither to condemn or convert. Of course if the Holy Spirit speaks I would never stop someone from accepting Christ as savior. But my goal is to be love, to be a positive and encouraging experience for someone who may not have ever experienced what Christ can look like to them in a very realistic way, and to be a reminder that He hasn’t forgotten, given up on, or walked away from them.
And each time I go out, I feel the weight of each story and my heart feels a little more aligned with The Lord. I understand a little more how His heart must break with every tear that falls from His child’s face and every person that walks away from Him in confusion, exhaustion, and anger. Life is hard; sometimes seemingly unbearable. And we shake our fists at Him asking how He could let this happen to people, especially people truly trying to live for Him. But what if instead of questioning our Father, who has repeatedly proven His love is immeasurable and timing is perfect, we went out to be the love and comfort while we wait for Him to unveil what He’s doing?
Right now I am reading “Daring to Hope: Finding God’s Goodness in the Broken and the Beautiful” – Katie Davis Majors. She speaks so much to what compassion truly looks like. Here are my two favorite quotes:
“[Compassion is not a bending toward the underprivileged from a privileged position; it is not a reaching out from on high to those who are less fortunate below; it is not a gesture of sympathy or pity for those who fail to make it in the upward pull. On the Contrary, compassion means going directly to those people and places where suffering is most acute and build a home there.” – Henri Nouwen
“And if compassion truly means to suffer with, then … being compassionate a His is compassionate, is not to pity, not to extend a hand of charity, but to be truly broken, to feel gut-wrenching pain when we see others suffer. In this way, maybe we are not called to alleviate suffering (as I had once imagined) as much as we are called to enter the suffering of others and walk with them through it.” – Katie David Majors
Just read those a couple times, because that is a huge heart shift from what I thought it looked like.
I am always amazed by people’s willingness to welcome us into their space and share their honest thoughts and struggles. Now I am grateful for a way to share all those stories with you.
On the most recent outreach day I went walking in park in Mendoza. There were two girls from my team with me as well as a YWAM staffer to translate. We made friends with one family really quickly and had a wonderful conversation with them, and the ability to pray over them and a situation with their sister. Then we continued to walk.
We were about to sit down with another group of girls when a little boy from a family not far off waved at us. We took that as our invitation. We sat down and just talked about the day for a while. As we were getting to know each other, sharing names and things like that, the woman in the family shared that she was from Bolivia. How cool! We are leaving for Bolivia in a week. That was an easy way for us to be able to share what we were doing this year.
This woman’s name was Jesus. Really. Her goddaughter was with her, as well as the goddaughter’s child and friend. As Jesus began to share so many details of her life, my heart ached. The man she was with, Vito, she had originally been his caretaker but they had been I a relationship for the past couple years. His children had abandoned him essentially. They had taken all of his savings from the last 40 years of work as well as his homes. They had attempted to put him in a geriatric home, which she told us were so unsafe here. Because of the danger, she stopped them, but now they never call him, even on holidays or birthdays. She says they hate her and don’t want her around. She said, “The group of us you see here, this is who would come to anything.” When we asked to pray for her she said for health, because he makes so little from his retirement and she has to work three days a week to pay for his medical bill. But she had also shared with us that she doesn’t like to be away from him for long because he had previously tried to kill himself. But each time she mentioned a hurt, she finished with, “but the Lord sees everything.”
With every word a weight was added to my heart. I looked at her and felt the loneliness, the desperation, the inability to understand how someone could treat their family this way. This woman amazed me. In her hurt, she knew she couldn’t remain bitter and that the Lord would have sovereignty in the end of her life. I remembered the book and what Katie had said about compassion. I wasn’t looking at Jesus and Vito with pity. They brought me into their place so I could feel their pain, and I looked at them and saw what God saw; His child, hurting. My heart shattered. He put me here to love them as a representative of Himself. So how could I leave and be sure they knew his love?
I prayed. And I spoke every truth I knew to be from His promises over their life:
Regardless of how we are treated on earth, the Lord finds us His most valuable creation.
Even if we are dismissed on earth, the Lord will reward us for being faithful to Him.
Their age does not change their value. He sees them as his children. He has purpose for them, and wants them to walk in joy until He calls them home.
He has not forgotten them.
He sees them.
This is not a true representation of family. He wants more for them.
They are so loved.
I finished my prayer, so grateful that my Father had brought me to this grassy hill to be love. Jesus and Vito cried, and we just embraced them. Then Jesus asked to pray for us and our trip to Bolivia, and she prayed blessings over us. I’m overwhelmed at how she still had more to give away.
We also felt the Lord asking us to give financially to them. It honestly wasn’t much just because we truly didn’t have many pesos on us. My thought was simply if she can be home for a little bit without worrying it is worth it. They cried again.
Then Alisha, the YWAM staffer, shared that Vito was not a believer and asked if we wanted to share with him. We asked if he wanted to accept Christ as his savior, and he said yes! A 70 year old man, in the park, on a hill with people he bare knew, said yes to JESUS! It is never too late, y’all.
But the most powerful thing though, was that as he prayed, he said that Jesus also died for the sins of his children and asked that they would be forgiven….I’m speechless. Many a tear were shed on that hill.
Once again, IT WAS THAT SIMPLE! I think God is showing me that everything that seems crazy and out there is so normal and so casual and so what He wants for our every day.
But then my heart went back to 1 Corinthians. My whole purpose in coming on the race was to be love for people who had never experienced it or really just needed it. Through that, God has been showing me what love is really supposed to look like and is redefining each word in that passage of scripture.
1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
And that last part got me. Vito and Jesus had been failed. Over and over and over the people who should have been loving them the most, failed them utterly. They didn’t just neglect loving them, but intentionally went against them in multiples ways, disregarding their hearts and needs.
“Your love never fails” may be one of the most over played Christian songs. But recently in a worship session, before singing this song someone asked, “how many of you have ever been let down?” Immediately it hit me. That’s why it hurts. That’s why heartbreak hurts. That’s why broken friendships hurt. That’s why family pain like this hurts so much. Because you set expectations for people and they let you down. People make promises, break them, and you’re let down. It sounds so obvious, but it wasn’t to me. People, even good people, failed me.
After that day, and after this day with Vito and Jesus, I’m so grateful for the constant, unwavering, unchanging and yet growing love of my Father. He is proud of me. He wants good for me. He always comes through. He will never fail me.
I hope I could remind them of that, and thankful He reminded me.
