The Hole in Our Gospel
This section of chapter nine of "The Hole in Our Gospel" by Richard Stearns (president of World Vision) describes very well why I continue to go back to Honduras year after year, and why I encourage other people to go.
"I have to confess to you that I, too, struggle to mourn over these kids as if they were my own. Becoming the president of World Vision didn’t turn me into Teresa of Calcutta. It is altogether possible for me to do my job at World Vision with a sense of emotional detachment. I can sit in meetings all day, review financial statements, attend chapel at eleven o’clock on Wednesdays, and even write a book about the poor, without my heart burning every moment with sadness., Like most Americans, I can get easily distracted by the details of my own life and family. We have a nice home, live in a pleasant neighborhood, and go to a beautiful church. We make trips to the mall, go out to the movies, and take family vacations – often with little thought for the tragic lives of children thousands of miles away. But then I get on a plane, and twenty-four hours later I find myself in the home of a grieving mother dying of AIDS and leaving her five children orphans. Or I see a baby slowly starving to death, a child with one leg because of a landmine accident, or a little girl who was rescued from prostitution. And all of a sudden it becomes very personal again. Somebody else’s kids just became very important to me because now I know their names, I have looked into their eyes, and I have cried with their parents. I come back home angry at myself, incensed by my own apathy, with a fresh resolve and a renewed passion to crusade on behalf of these kids, to fight for them with every breath in my body. The meetings are no longer routine, and the balance sheets are no longer just numbers; they are now life-and-death issues. They’re urgent. We’ve got to do something! We’ve got to help! But then, a few weeks later, the fire dies down again, the images in my head fade, I drift back inside my safe and protected world, and they’re somebody else’s kids again – not mine."
- The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns, pg 109
January 2010 – Pictures!
Special thanks to Eunice Mejia for the photos!
Quote: Santa Teresa de Avila
"CRISTO no tiene otro cuerpo
que el TUYO;
no tiene MANOS ni pies en la tierra,
excepto los TUYOS.
Tuyos son los OJOS a través de los cuales
El mira a este mundo con COMPASION.
TUYAS son las manos
con las que El bendice
a todo el mundo."
- Santa Teresa de Avila
"Christ has no body now on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours,
yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion
is to look out to the earth,
yours are the feet by which He is to go about doing good
and yours are the hands by which He is to bless us now."
- St Teresa of Avila
Rock Newsletter – Spring 2009
Here is the Spring 2009 Rock Newsletter about our partnership in Choluteca.
To love at all is to be vulnerable
"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it up carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable… The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers… of love is hell." – C.S. Lewis
Mood Music
A few songs to get you in the mood…
Matt’s Story
As told at our Praise, Worship and Communion Service on January 29, 2009…
Hey my name is Matt and I was asked to come down and tell you a piece of my story today. For some reason my story always seems to have a good experience and a bad experience when ever I learn something in my life. Today I will share with you the latest thing that the lord has taught me. The lord recently choose to work with me on my pride. My pride in that I can fix just about anything, from cars to houses. Over the years I have been a little bit of every thing. I have been a mechanic, a carpenter, an electrician, and a plumber. So there is not too much in the realm of necessities that I can’t fix. Read more
Articles on Short-Term Missions
Boundless webzine recently ran a few articles on short-term missions. They touch on things like "why go?" and "what makes a trip successful or unsuccessful?" Worth reading if you’ve got the time. It’s always good to think about our motivations, and how we are to gauge success and failure.
Spring Break 2008 Video (finally)
I know this is way late. But better late than never, right? Without further ado…
Why Go? (3)
From the GCLA Missions site, here is the missions video for 2009: