"I am convinced, that neither death nor life, neither angles nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
-Romans 8:38-39
Jesus, come take me away. I long to see your face. this world is broken, yet beautifully made. Jesus, come take me away- Charlie Hall "Come for me"
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Morning scripture and thoughts:
Mark 6:6-13
"Then Jesus went around teaching from village to village. Calling the twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits...They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them"
So many people ask, "Why does God let these terrible things happen?" Looking at the children here I wonder similar things "God, How did this happen? Why is this happening to them?"
I found this scripture this morning. As I read it I couldn't help but wonder..."Why would Jesus recruit disciples?" I mean surely he could have done everything he did, with or without disciples. They didn't make one difference in his larger plan, to redeem the world. But suddenly I see so much significance in that.
He calls us, invites us, to be apart of his plan. He lets us take part by solving the problems we face. He does more than just say, "Sit back I'm Jesus, I can do this." Instead he says "You can not only be saved, but you can help save."
That is such a blessing in itself. Such a powerful blessing.
That is such a blessing in itself. Such a powerful blessing.
I'm suppose to do more than just pity theses children, I'm suppose to help God save them.
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Today we went...SHOPPING.
I'm not going to lie, I was not in the most cheery of moods. I almost passed out after sitting in a room with no AC for like and hour and a half sweating every ounce of water I possibly had in my body. NO BUENO AMIGOS. Needless to say, after that, on top of being already physically and emotionally drained, I was exhausted. Despite my less than peppy attitude, after I saw all six of our empty bright orange shopping carts suddenly filled, I was pretty impressed.
As each basket rolled out of the store you could see need after need after need being supplied. 1000+ diapers. 10 bags of rice, 10 bags of beans, 2 gallons of vegetable oil, 8 cylinders of baby formula, boxes of milk, 3 huge carts of eggs, bags of flour and sugar. It was...so...incredible.
I have to be honest again. Even after buying all of this, I was still unsatisfied. Kristin and I had planned to buy the girls at the orphanage bibles. We walked out with 0.
After expressing our disappointment Neri, our leader/translator, called a local christian book store to see if they had bibles.
After expressing our disappointment Neri, our leader/translator, called a local christian book store to see if they had bibles.
Oh they had bibles alright.
1 bible = $3.75
My mouth dropped. My bible at home cost me like 40 bucks.
We were back in business.
We arrived at the book store high spirited. We all inspected the $3.75 dollar bible. It was perfect.
Okay so here's the inside-Honduras-joke. So I'm looking at the bible right. The first thing I notice is the bright green "Santa". This sparks my interest and I start flipping through it while out loud wondering "Why does it say Santa? Is this like a Christmas edition?" Of course the lady at the book store looks at me stupid and says "Santa means holy" Maybe yall knew this, but it was NEWS to me. Why in the WORLD do we call Santa Clause Holy Clause?! Anyway we asked is they had 5 cases (which would be 120 bibles) The answer was Yes. Yes they did.
The man came up to us and said that he had bought all the bibles and that he was upset/worried because no one was buying them. So he started praying asking God to send people to come buy these bibles. My first response was "It's a Christmas miracle!"
We were the answer to his prayers, and he was the answers to ours. Can you get over HOW BIG our God is? AHHHH :) I CAN NOT. and I LOVE IT! I LOVE IT I LOVE IT.
I don't even know how to even begin to describe, the feeling you get when you help someone. Let alone the feeling of knowing that you provided even a weeks worth of needs for these beautiful kids. It's overwhelming, overpowering. It fills up my heart to the point of overflow. For me that was what it felt like to be truly joyful.
Can we all just give that glory to God. He pulled so many different people together to pull of something truly miraculous. Praise his holy name.
( That was our friend! Such a cutie I know!)
i had to laugh at your confusion regarding the santa on the front of the bibles. i grew up speaking spanish - though i am by no means fluent - and it never occurred to me that someone who didn't speak spanish would think santa would refer to santa clause!
ReplyDeleteon a more serious note, i am awed that the bibles there cost $3.75. and especially since ours in the us are far more expensive! there's this really cool archaeological bible that retails for $50, i think.
and while i think that bible is super cool, and would like a copy of my own, i have to ask myself: do we have to have all these extras in our bibles? is the word of God enough? why not? and why is it priced so highly here? why are we turning God's precious words into another scheme to profit? i know it takes money to print anything, even bibles, but i know that God is powerful enough to sustain the enterprise to print and sell bibles for only a few dollars, or, honestly, give them away.