Saturday, January 22, 2005

Why we serve

Scrappleface reminds us that by muzzling faith based aid groups, you are stopping them from giving hope.

When one is in despair, the news that there is a God who loves you, who is there for you, who has suffered like you, and that at the end he will wipe all our tears away is indeed good news.
However, there is a time and place for everything, and in the midst of a massive disaster, just being there is a powerful witness.

You don't preach to someone who is shellshocked from losing everything. You comfort and help. Later, when the time comes, if they ask, you share. And the sharing is not just words, because your deeds showed that the words were based on reality, not a fantasy..

Ironically, in Africa, foreign missionaries preached for 100 years and got few converts. Once colonialism left, however, and people saw how they could be truly African (not an Oreo) and that Christianity was indeed an extension of the best of their own culture, and improved the lives of their Christian neighbors, the conversions became a flood...

First you till the soil, then you plant the seed. The harvest may never come-- some seeds are in shallow soil, some in rocky soil, and some stolen away-- but the good seeds in the good hearts will bring a harvest.

The faith based aid workers are the tillers, not the harvest. And what they do shines in the light of eternity.

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