I had a few phenomenal discussions this week with a good friend of mine. Mostly business-talk, but God-talk also...we both know life is much bigger than just business success and money.
Along the way Haiti came up (go figure, it comes up a lot in my discussions, somehow:). My buddy's a straight-shooter, and shared the commonly-held viewpoint that going to another country for mission work carries a great expense (financial, time, logistics, etc)...and we Americans have enough mission work to do in our own country, state, cities...and even neighborhoods. And, he also asked what I would assume everyone wonders, "I hear mostly about how YOUR lives were changed...but how wre the lives of the people over there changed by your presence?".
It made me realize he's right...I've been so surprised at how the trip changed ME, that I probably don't share about the lives of people we served there. And I respect my friend for asking, knowing that we'd have opinions at other ends of the spectrum. Two years ago, I could have been the face-guy for "I'm never going outside the U.S. for helping anyone when we've got Americans in our our neighborhoods that need help, love, encouragement, hope...and Jesus Christ." But God started working on me, I started listening, and now I embrace God's obvious call to me as someone to speak up about the needs of the human race...not just the American race...to love and serve God's people, not just American people. That's not to say that is everyone's calling, or your calling. I don't know if I'd even say it is my "calling"...but I know for right now, it is definitely something to me.
Click below and watch. I put together a song with a bunch of pictures of the people from our Church at the Bay family here in Tampa, making a difference in the lives of orphan kids in Haiti. The song is one we sing in our church. It rocks my world, so I had the lyrics put in the video too. It gives me chills, knowing that we bring to these kids and to these people the hope, encouragement & love of Jesus Christ...through ourselves. And they "get" that I think.
What, specifically, kinda locks-me-up, are the images from the song of "I'm running to Your arms..."
and "nothing compares to Your embrace". Knowing that God used an
ordinary guy like me, with all my screw-ups of the past (and even the
present), it really blows the ceiling off what I thought was my limit of what I could do for God in my life...it was proof for me that its God's will, not mine. And His will is what changes lives.
Every one of us has our own stories and experiences of being used by God to touch the lives of these kids there. Most of us probably won't know if, or how we touched/impacted/changed the lives of these kids by our presence for a few days. So it is incredibly humbling to personally be a part of one of those stories, and to know others in our group that absolutely were used by God to change some lives. But the joy is in obediently serving, regardless if we ever learn the stories of life change or not. We trust that God has a plan bigger and better than ours. His will, His timing.
