9 am and Bible study is starting, the topic this time is about being trustworthy with what God has tasked us with. Luke 19:11-27 is the parable of the ten Minas and the message of the story is that the master trusted three servants each with different amounts of money two of them invested the trusted money and earned more for the master while the last servant decided to hide the money and not invest it in anything.The master was furious because the last servant didn’t even attempt to invest with the money he was trusted with.
Just last week the whole squad was in Thailand for an event called “Awakening”. At this Awakening we were challenged to be better men, better stewards, better examples of Christ. During one of the sessions I felt convicted and called to make a change, to promise to God that I would be more obedient to His callings. This promise has not come lightly to me, so far in my life I have not been the best man, Christian, husband, friend, son that I know God is calling me to be. I’ve made countless mistakes, hurt people, disobeyed what God was asking of me, but part of life is admitting mistakes and asking God for forgiveness.
So here I am, sharing what I’ve learned. Two days ago my team and I walked to downtown Battambang, Cambodia and went around praying for anything we felt called to pray for. Half of us went right the other half left planning to meet on the other side of the river half way. SO we walked, only a few minutes in and I notice 6 young boys around a table all with cigarette boxes in their hands, and I kept walking. To be clear, as weird as it sounds I didn’t feel called to talk to them or even to stop and pray for them.
On we went, on the other side of the bridge a man clearly under the influence of some sort of drug was calling us over, he was dripping blood from his hand and we kept walking. This time though… I felt called to turn back and pray, even though I didn’t want to I knew that my promise to God was far too important. After praying for this man nothing was visibly different his hand still bleeding and communication still lacking we smiled and continued our walk. I felt good despite not seeing any results.
We then met up with the other half of the team. We decided to cover each others ground and keep walking the direction we were headed to complete our circle. Knowing they would see the little boys I told the other team to be on the look out and to pray for them if they passed them.
Set off again, God called me once more to pray for a little old lady who was doing card reading. This time I didn’t hesitate and stopped to talk with her, a serious language barrier made it difficult but we both parted ways with a smile. Coming full circle… as I walked up to join my team I noticed a few boys down near the river smoking cigarettes and cooking a fish on top of smoldering sticks. NOW God was calling me to action, I crawled down the side of the levy and greeted the kids.
When I got down the situation was worse than I thought, some boys were smoking out of straws some bottles and others just regularly, but all the kids were dirty and in need of a good meal. I became angry, not at the kids but at the situation that they were in. I picked up a pack of cigarettes off the ground, and looked at one of the boys. He then offered me a cigarette, I instead shook my head and made the motion of throwing them and said smoking is bad stop smoking.
Then one of the most amazing things I’ve ever witnessed happened… not only did that boy throw those cigarettes into the river, another boy threw his pack and then another!
All the boys soon joined in, extinguishing their cigarettes and throwing them away. After they did that my heart was so full of joy for the kingdom, we all played together along with everyone on the team and just showed them the love of Christ. The boys ate real food, had fresh water and felt loved and cared about. Come to find, these boys range from 8 years old to 14.
This whole experience reminded me of Jesus telling the story of the Shrewd manager. Luke 16:10-12 “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else’s property, who will give you property of your own?”
To me this experience was showing me that God wanted me to prove trustworthy before having me talk to those boys and reap the reward of joy that they provided.
P.S. the group we were with went back yesterday and fed them again, and then made a local organization aware of these street kids and now that organization has agreed to help the kids and look after them.
God and His many lessons amaze me every day, keep saying yes to God and keep proving trustworthy. He will trust you with more and more and reward you beyond your expectations!
-Ryan
(Because its “Manistry Month” Megan and I are spending the first 2 weeks of our time in Cambodia in the same city of Battambang but working and living at different ministry sites. To read about her latest adventure move over to the previous post “You’ve Got Mail: From Megan”)
