I thought this article was interesting. I am not going to get into my opinions on the war in Iraq, that may be a post for another time, or not. The thing that I found interesting is this quote:
"I so wish that the Church would wake up to their need. People often ask what they can do to help and the fact is all we need is money to buy food. I do not need any more teddy bears, they are very nice but they provide no help for the children. I do not need any more Bibles, we have more than enough.
"I do not forget my people looking at the Bibles and saying, 'We cannot eat Bibles'. I still need money for food and rent. People need help with their rent and what we can offer is very limited. There are still hundreds of Christians sleeping in the Churches because they have been made to leave their homes. Twenty-seven of our people remain kidnapped; we have no money to get them back, so they will be killed. I have paid all my own money we have no more left, we just hope and trust that God will provide and He does. So things remain awful but our people continue to praise God."
It seems like once again I am struck by the necessity that we as Christians meet the BASIC needs of people. Why do we keep sending these people bibles and teddy bears when they have no food??? But I can see people sitting down at a meeting and deciding what to send to people in Iraq. Of course Christians think of Bibles, which is not bad to give to people, but how open is a person going to be to the gospel if they are starving? I know that the "ultimate gift" as some might say is the gift of salvation. I agree, that is a gift that will last for eternity. BUT (and this is a huge but)I think we need to meet their basic needs on top of that. Or more importantly before that.
I know this has been talked about a lot. It was kinda the theme for beach retreat, and a lot of other times it has come up.
I am not sure how this applies to my own life, maybe I am being a complete hypocrite. As a stay at home mom living in America, where does this fit into my life? Does it mean giving money or food to homeless people? Does it mean supporting children in third world countries? I am honestly not sure where this fits into my own life.
I would love to hear how you are fitting it into your own life.
4 comments:
I am not fitting it into my own life. But I am glad you posted a blog about it because it is making me re-evaluate things.
let me know when you figure it out, because i'm pondering the same question. we support missionaries, but is that enough? how do i, personally, get involved? can I, when my own family is constantly in the midst of one crisis after another? how do i help others, when i struggle to just hold my family together?
beautiful Kristi. Your thoughts are pure and perfect. I love it! I am very much fired up by how much CHRISTIANS have failed, not the world's people. We are supposed to have stepped up to help instead of leaving everyone else to do it. i'm glad they did though, and that they opened our eyes to a problem.
i like the way you think.
i couldn't help but think through tis post today when the gideons were rambling on and on about "distributing testaments" to the little black muslim boy and into "professional's offices"...
i like their faithfulness, but i fear they have missed the point!
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