I wanted to start us off by sharing a passage about justice.  I felt we needed to just pause and remember why we do what we do.  You know there is easy to get our motives twisted because there are a lot of payoffs for a church in Boulder to be involved – its fun to do it with other churches, it makes Christianity look cool & hip, this issue touches people’s hearts and pocketbooks if you know what I mean, it provides opportunities for people to get involved...  But the real reason we should want to be involved is because its the right thing to do.  It is loving our neighbor in need.  it is a God-thing because He loves justice and mercy.  And there are little kids all over the world who are being abused and need to be rescued & restored.

I hadn’t  decided to which verse to pick on God’s heart for justice.  Just that morning thought of a few and decided that the last two verses of Psalm 10 might be appropriate.  As I got ready to read it,  felt I should just read the whole Psalm for context.  You know its like reading one line of a poem and not getting the full meaning of the author.  I hadn’t read the whole chapter in a while and was amazed at how appropriate it fit the context.

I encourage you to read it with me and think of a little girl – imagine a sweet innocent face – being tricked by a predator perhaps by a promise of a better life.  A little girl – maybe orphaned, certainly vulnerable – being taken captive.  Maybe she’s in mexico.  Maybe she’s in Thailand.  She could be Russian, Chinese or even a little American girl in your own town.  Now she is being used an instrument of vile, gain counted not even as a life by her traffickers.  Her little body being abused over and over again.  She is tramped, helpless.  Innocence is shattered.   Imagine her calling out in despiration for help.  Maybe she doesn’t even know there is a powerful God who hears, who cares – the one who is a helper of the fatherless.  As we read it, let’s join in the call for God to arise and make things right… to see His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Psalm 10

Why, O LORD, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak, who are caught in the schemes he devises.  He boasts of the cravings of his heart; he blesses the greedy and reviles the LORD. In his pride the wicked does not seek him;  in all his thoughts there is no room for God.  His ways are always prosperous; he is haughty and your laws are far from him;  he sneers at all his enemies.  He says to himself, “Nothing will shake me; I’ll always be happy and never have trouble.”  His mouth is full of curses and lies and threats;  trouble and evil are under his tongue.

He lies in wait near the villages; from ambush he murders the innocent, watching in secret for his victims. He lies in wait like a lion in cover; he lies in wait to catch the helpless; he catches the helpless and drags them off in his net.  His victims are crushed, they collapse;  they fall under his strength. He says to himself, “God has forgotten; he covers his face and never sees.”

Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God. Do not forget the helpless. Why does the wicked man revile God? Why does he say to himself,  ”He won’t call me to account”?  But you, O God, do see trouble and grief;  you consider it to take it in hand.  The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless.

Break the arm of the wicked and evil man; call him to account for his wickedness that would not be found out.

The LORD is King for ever and ever; the nations will perish from his land. You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry,defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.

Death, cruel death.  This enemy, this curse, separates loved ones.  It creates pain and suffering.  It evokes grief and sorrow.  It devastates.   It destroys.  We can try to deny it.  We can try to ignore it.  We can try to tempt its fate.  We can become numb to it when we read the headlines or see a movie where lives are wasted left and right.   But there is no denying.  We are live in its cross-hairs. The clock is ticking.  One day when we least expect it, we will face death.  Maybe today.  We know this.  We see it when we look in the mirror.  We don’t want to think about it.  But we know it.

Death should not be.  It is wrong.  It was not God’s plan.  There once was no death.  There was no pain, no suffering, no separation. Death entered the world with its twin – sin.    And how painful & cruel  the first death must have been for Adam & Eve who not only lost a child but a a child murdered by the hands of their only other child.

But yet though we all face it – generation after generation – in every place on the planet –  death is sure to lose .  The creator came.  He to save us all from this common enemy.  He looked death in the face.  He experienced  its pain.  He took on death.  Then… He defeated death.  He conquered it.  He arose. He took away its power.   He gave life in its place.

And this is not just some wish or a blissful thought that we try to envision to numb the pain of death.  Its not some fairytale.  More than five hundred were eyewitnesses to this firstfruit victory.

One day this reality will be fully revealed.  Now I see through a dark glass.  Then I will fully understand.  We will shout in victory:  “Death, you slime, you have been swallowed up!  Game over – you lose.   Hey Death, where’s your victory?  Come on now.  Where, tell me where, O Death is your sting?” One day.  The last enemy to be destroyed will be Death.

There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.  He will make everything new!  Death will experience death. How ironic is that!

And yet right now, I – we, all of us on planet earth - still face this enemy.  We still feel its sting.  Even in a sure victory, we still live under its curse.  We still grieve.  We still know its pain and the hole it creates in our lives.  But the paradox is that this future is also a reality.  Death has no more power.   I don’t have to fear death.

I hurt, but I have hope.

When my mom was 8 years old she made a decision that affected today.  She made a decision to put her faith in Jesus and follow Him.  She followed him and trusted in Him all her life.

When my mom was about 10 or 11, her family moved back to Georgia.  They settled in Cobb County in Smyrna where she graduated high school and then she went to Mercer University.  After graduation, she then went to seminary as she was preparing to go to the mission field to teach Missionary Kids – MKs – but God redirected her life to raise PKs – Preacher’s Kids.   Working one summer in Rockmart, GA as a church secretary, my mom met my dad and they fell in love.  My dad had been called to be a pastor and was looking to go back to school so my mom encouraged him to go to where she had graduated – Mercer.  They dated for a year long distance and then got married the following year.  So she became a wife while my dad was going through college and also a mom as my sister Belinda was born the following year.  Then they went back to the same seminary where she had started – Southwest Baptist in Fort Worth Texas – and my sister Laura was born.  So Laura’s a Texan.  Then when they finished seminary and my dad took his first fulltime pastorate in Oxford Georgia and I was born in 1964.  Our family moved several times through the years as my dad pastored several churches and had different assignments.  I will share a little more about that later.   But want to share a little more about our family and who they are.   Laura married Jose in 1990 and they have 4 children – Isaac, Joseph, Claire & Elizabeth.  In 2000, the year Elizabeth was born, I married Robin and we have 3 little boys: Luke, Jack and Drew.  Her dad – my Grandfather – went home to be with the LORD when I was in High school in 1981.  And in 1994, my Grandma Daisy went home to be with the LORD.

I want to share a few things about my mom.  Hopefully I won’t be too verbose.  The three things I want to share are three different roles as I thought about my mom.

One is the role is a pastor’s wife which is an incredible job.  There are 500,000 clergy in America.  Of those 500,000, 200,000 will wake up on Monday morning and consider quitting their job.  About 40% every Monday morning consider quitting.  My dad was a Southern Baptist pastor and every month, 1000 Southern Baptist pastors quit the ministry.  Because it’s a difficult job being in ministry: the pressures, the Spiritual battle and living with the weight of leading a congregation.  And there is, I am sure none of you are like this, but there is always someone who is critical; no matter what you do.   They will say things.  To be a pastor’s wife…  and we were often a lot in small-towns… people are critical of how you dress or how your kid’s were raised.  I’m sure I contributed to some of the backlash my mom might have received.  The one thing about my mom though- and my dad and I talked about this the other day – was that she never complained.  She never complained about moving.  She never complained if we were living a little tight if the pastor’s salary wasn’t that much.  She was faithful.  She was an encourager to my dad, beside him all those years.  I think that’s why many leave — you need someone beside you to encourage you in that great task of leading a church.  My mom was that.  I spoke with her several times and she would say, “Andy, your dad is discouraged and I don’t know how to encourage him.”  And we would talk about it and of course she did.  She was there for him.  Faithful.  Continued to follow the LORD the whole time. Content with my dad being the one up front and just being there for him.

Another thing about my mom is that she was an educator.  She was a first grade teacher even before I started school.  And when we moved to Washington County, there was an opportunity to work with what they called in those days, ‘training centers’.  These were created for the mentally handicapped back because we didn’t know what to do with them in the traditional schools.  Mom began teaching and assisting the director of the training  center.  She also went back to school and got her Masters in Special Education.  She worked with Special Education up until her retirement.  When we moved up here, she first worked in Hall County’s Training Center.  And then when I was in High school, they begin to move Special Education back into the school, and most kids were placed back in the classrooms but they had a unique class for those with multiple handicaps.  There was one class in the county for elementary kids who had multiple handicaps and my mom taught that.  These kids would have both physical and mental disabilities – perhaps like in a wheelchair but also mentally handicapped.  You know teaching is a wonderful profession.  You can always have a hope that some former student will come back and say “I’m now a doctor and you had an influence on my life”.  Burt if you work with the mentally handicapped, you know they can never do this.  As a society, we often don’t know what to do with the mentally challenged.  We look away or we will not draw near.  But my mom was drawn near and worked with these children who were special and dear to her.  Year after year.  Maybe you’ll see incremental change but not huge change.  All you can do is just faithfully serve them.   It’s a noble thing but I think it’s also a godly thing.  It’s the character of Christ.  Jesus focused on the least – the people at the bottom of society – the widows, the poor, crippled.   He came to heal the sick not the healthy.  The bible says what credit is it if you love people who love you?  But can you love people who don’t have the capacity to love you in the same way.  Jesus said that when he returns that people who worked the least of these, ‘you did it to me – when fed the hungry, when you cared for the sick…  And I believe, though he didn’t say this verbatim, “when you cared and worked with the mentally challenged.”  I believe that every day when my mom was teaching and working for these children – the least of our society-she was working with Jesus.   She was working with Jesus that’s what he said.  It’s amazing.   People will stand up and say, “ I cast out demons in his name, or healed in his name or taught in his name” and Jesus will respond, “I never knew you.”  You can do those things and not be doing them for Jesus but yourself but Jesus said when you served among the least, He will say that you not only did it but you did it to me.   And I believe, He said this to my mom when she first saw his face a few days ago.

The last thing about my mom that I was to share is the role of a mother.  I’m sure it’s always a special thing of mom and her son.   And to add on to it, I was the baby.  I had a unique relationship with my mother – close.  I loved her.  There was an understanding all through life.  You know, your mom is always there when things hurt but there was something more a closeness.  You know our family, much like any family, would have conflict and I to confess – I always took my mom’s side.  Every time.  Well once I didn’t take her side and it shocked her.  And I don’t recall exactly what it was but there was a time I felt some injustice but I remember my mom sitting with me as I wept and was frustrated.  She was there with me, loving me, believing in me and saying ‘it was okay’.  And that is what I remember of my mom – being there.  Long hugs.  A generous woman whom I love.

In 1998, I felt the LORD was calling me to China.  I was single at the time and had been on my own for a while but felt impressed to process this with my parents in an honoring way.  I felt the Lord was calling me long-term to China.  Little did I know a few months later, I would meet Robin and the LORD would change those plans.   But at that time as I talked with my mom, I knew this was a big deal.  I would be gone for holidays and not sure how often I would be able to come home or when I would.  My mom said, “Andy when you were followed the call of the LORD right out of college, it was initially hard for me.  But as I talked it over with the Lord, I was reminded of the passage when Jesus said to his mom, ‘I must be about my Father’s business’ and I prayed, ‘Andy must be about His father’s business.  And I will give him to you’.  She said to Jesus, ‘I will trust you with Him no matter where you call him, I will trust you’“.

You know my mom through the years, even though I lived in a lot of places overseas or in Colorado, she never said, ‘why don’t you live closer to us in Georgia or why are you raising grandbabies away from me’   She might have thought it but she never said it.  She never stood in the way of God’s call because she trusted that God was good and He had called me.  She had given me back to him even though we were close and it was hard.  Being in ministry and helping young people go into the mission field, I see this a lot in ministry where parents cannot let their kids follow the LORD.  But my mom never did, she trusted.  Even though she longed to see me and wanted me close by, she let me go.

I was reminded of that on Monday as I heard my mom while in ICU had taken a turn for the worse.  Part of me didn’t want my mom to go.  It was too sudden… I wasn’t expecting that.  Who would want that?  But I said “Jesus, just as she trusted you with me, I am trusting you with her.   She is in your hands.”

She is in a better place.  She is in a place where she doesn’t have to count points anymore.  She is in his glory, face-to-face.  No pain.  No suffering. No curse.  Forever.  Our life is a vapor.  The time away from her will be so small in comparison to eternity.  She sees him Face-to-Face.  How could I stand in the way of God calling her home!  And of course I couldn’t anyway.  That’s where she is.   She is with him.  My wife reminded me that even though we are saying bye today, she has been with Jesus since Tuesday morning.  A new body.  An eternity.  And I will miss her just like she would miss me when I was gone.  But I will see her again and we will hug again.  But she is with her Savior who she has walked with and known for a long time.

I appreciate you coming and just wanted you to know that I had a wonderful mom, and a good friend and I can’t wait to see her again.

In Matthew 25, Jesus gives that famous theology-rockin’ passage of separating the sheep and the goats based on how they responded to the least of these my brothers & sisters.  It’s in the feeding the hunger, giving water to the thirsty, clothing the naked, providing shelter to the homeless, ministering to the sick and visiting the prisoner that we meet Jesus and in turn receive the reward of entering into his Kingdom.  Parenthetically when we don’t do these things, we are cast out of his presence.  Paired with other passages found in James and I John will rock your theology!  …Hopefully.

This past week in the South African township of Nellamapius working with Beam Africa Network, our team has encountered Jesus.   Because kids are in school  (its winter here) our mornings are filled with going into the community and visiting people in their homes.   People either live in 1 bedroom cement block homes and tin shacks called Makukus.  The Makukus are often have no electricity or running water and are 1-room homes in that everything – kitchen, sitting area, bedroom are all one room smaller than most bedrooms in America.

The people are always at home because unemployment may be as high as 80% in the townships.  One family I visited had several generations living in the homes and surrounding makukus all trying to survive on just the granny’s pension.  It barely covers the rent, electricity and water bills.  We have come across sick because they can’t afford the clinic (or it has no medicine).  And since they can’t afford the clinic, the are still sick or injured.  And since they are injured or sick, they can’t work.  And since they can’t work, they can’t afford the clinic.  Do you sense the despair?

But the worst….  the most grievous, the most painful, the most unjust situation I have seen I first saw on Thursday.  A widow and her two children were living on the outskirts of Nellmapius on a farm.   Her husband had been a worker for this white farmer.   He died after being gored by a bull.  They live (if I can call it living) in a depapillated farm house with a partial roof.  There is no electricity.  There is no water.  There is no toilet.  They have to walk several kilometers to a river to bath or go to the toilet.  or they go in yard as it reeked of fowl odors.  The widow can’t work because she has arthritis.  She can’t get assistance for medicine.  The officials give her once look over and deem her not sick enough for aid.  She has nothing.  She has no kitchen.  She has no food.

But the worst is this cruel farmer.  His farm is surrounded by similar shacks.   He does not pay his workers.  He cares more for his cows than these people.  It is inhumane.  He is ruthless.  He is oppressing them.  He would force this woman off his land but she has no where to go and who would live in this ‘building’ anyway.

I had so much rage when I saw this condition.  This women is the six-fold least of these.  She has them all.  I had just led our team that morning to look at Jeremiah 22 where God condemns a king who did the same thing.  He compares this cruel king to his father Josiah who did what was right and just, who cares for the poor and the widows.  God himself says: “Is this not what it means to know me!”   But he pronounced judgment on the cruel king that he will die with no one mourning his death and his very body will be drugged outside the city like a dead ass.

Yesterday, we delivered a food parcel to this family.  It is still very small.  They will die unless this condition changes.  The red-tape of government and the racist hate of the landlord stand against her.  Beam Africa will continue to stand on her behalf.  To help her with relief and fight with her until change happens.  I don’t know what it will take perhaps the equivalent of 60 minutes needs to expose this to the nation and shame others into action.

I have resolved that I will not leave this when I return in a few days.  I can’t leave this from my mind.   I will cry out to the Righteous Father on her behalf.  I will be like the persistent widow in Luke 18.  I will not stop until this prisoner has been set free.

Of those 35 million, 23 million live in Sub-Sahara Africa.  Only one (Haiti) of the top 20 countries in the world with HIV/AIDs is not Africa.  Nine of the top ten are from Zambia southward – 1. Swaziland; 2. Botswana; 3. Lesotho; 4. Zimbabwe; 5. South Africa; 6. Namibia; 7. Zambia; 8. Malawi; 9. Central African Republic; 10. Mozambique.   South Africa while 5th in % of people living with HIV/AIDs, is #1 in terms of vast numbers of people people living with HIV/AIDs.

It affects everything.   AIDS & poverty have a symbiotic relationship.  The poor have AIDs are more likely to not be able to afford the anti-viral medicine or proper medical care and AIDs creates poverty, orphans and despair.  Fifteen million children are orphaned in Africa because of AIDs.  It leads to a life of hopelessness.  Why live for the future when the future may never come?

This trip, we will dive headfirst  into this issue.  We will go where those who suffer live.  We will interact with kids who live on their own or whos’ only parent lies at mom sick and dying.  We will serve alongside those who care for those dying of AIDs.  Not sure what we will do.  Maybe it will be preparing & delivering a meal.  maybe it will be helping administer medicine.  Maybe it will be holding a hand comforting them and praying with them.

My prayer is that we will serve and extend love as Jesus.  And I know the promise that we will be doing it to Jesus too. (Matt 25:36-40)

There was a book I read last year called – No Place Left to Bury the Dead: Denial, Despair and Hope in the AIDS Pandemic.  The book frustrated me and yet gave hope.  Yet it put a name and a story to the numbers.  That’s what I want to happen too.  I want to know names and faces who are suffering and yet whom God loves who need to experience his care and hope.

There are so many things about Luke that I love and am proud of…

1.  I love his heart of compassion.  Sometimes its buried but I see glimpses as he talks about caring for the poor.

2.  I like how he loves to learn.

3.  I like that he shares what he knows not in a bragging way but simply matter of a fact.  I learn a lot of interesting things from him.  Last night, I learned that African elephants have two fingers on their trunk ends while Asian elephants have one.  I had no idea.

4.  I am proud of how high he scored this year on the tests given to him by the Talented and Gifted teacher at his school.  (Though Robin won’t let me brag and tell you.)

5.  Even though its challenging as a parent at times, I like how God has made him and how he views the world differently.

6.  I like that he loves to hike, climb rocks and just be out exploring.

7.  I was proud of him last week at the Cub Scout Camp when he got a bull-eyes the first time he ever did archery and then 2 bull-eyes, 2 – “9′s” (the next ring) and 1 – “8″ in 5 BB shots.  He’s got marksman skills I never had.

8.  I like how he tries at baseball.  I don’t care if he’s ever great or even good.  I just like that he tries and seems to have fun.

9.  I love it when he at 8 isn’t too big to crawl up in my lap and hug me.

10.  I was amazed when he said last night: “I’ve asked Jesus to come into my heart several times and change my habits.”   Sometimes I can’t tell where his heart is so I was beaming when he said this.

I love my big boy!  He is special and precious to me.  I hope he has a great 8th birthday!

This is not meant to be a political statement but I do think its interesting that only Jane Norton gave anything significant.  Norton averaged giving 10-21% of the income while Buck gave 0.01 to 4 %.  And Buck would come across as a philanthropist compared to the other side of the aisle.  Romanoff rarely reported any charitable giving on his income tax returns in past years and paltry claims when he did.   He says he gave to charity but it didn’t exceed the standard deductions.  (That would make sense if he was single but just means to me that he didn’t give that much.) But Sen. Bennett takes the cake.  One year he made $6.5 million in income and gave $624 in contributions.  The next year, his ‘generosity’ increased as he reported $5.3 million adjusted income and $1,910 in charitable giving.  So he barely based  met the national average of $1620.  But if you made 5.3 million, it seems like you are making way more than the average person.   His average would be like me givign $3 in one year and $15 in the next.  That’s absolutely embarrassing!

What dies this mean?  Of course, we are not required to give.  We live in a free country.  And these stats would have remained private except its news as they are running for public office.  (Or if like those running for Governor of Colorado, they had refused to share them.)

But to me its sad.  What kind of person repeatedly turns their back on those in need or non-profits that help those in need?   Where are we as a nation if our  leaders don’t have generous hearts?  Do we want to be a nation of people who take or give?  A generous heart is a heart of compassion.  A heart that looks on others and not yourself.  It evokes not just petty alms but giving sacrificially.  It’s a heart that bleeds rather than hands that are tight-fisted.  We need leaders to set the example.

I am reminded of Jeremiah 22 where God gives a judgment against evil leaders. One king was greedy building spacious palaces with large windows and cedar paneling.  He was exploiting workers in the process of his home improvement too.  God said:  ”Does it make you a king to have more and more cedar?  Did not your father (King Josiah) have food and drink? He did what was right and just, so all went well with him.  He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?”

Its not what you have… money, the ability to make money, position, palaces, title, power – that makes you a real leader.  It’s what you do for those in need.  Its by reaching down to help lift others help that you become a real leader.  Notice that when Josiah did those things, he had all he needed (food and drink) and all went well.  And to top it off, God says that this what it means to know me.  And that’s life and the ultimate even more than having enough and things going well.

A little over a year and half ago, my son became obsessed with hamsters, creating even a ‘pretend pet’.  So for Christmas 2008, we gave him a hamster.  At first he was tentative, new at this love thing.  His new-found love was too, biting him at first.  But they soon bonded and he loved her.  You couldn’t look into eyes and not love her.

However, it didn’t take long though to realize this relationship took work.  He had to provide for her and care for her.  After a while, he forget he had a ‘girlfriend’.   We had to remind him to take her out and do fun things with her.  Maybe when a friend came over, he would still proudly show her off and these friends would wonder why they didn’t have a girl like Luke had.  But for the most part she was not the thing he talked about all the time like he had before she entered his life.

Ticklish loved to excerise all night to keep up her girlish figure, so we first had her do wheel-running downstairs.  When Luke claimed that her staying downstairs made him forget her,  we sacrificed and kept her upstairs.  I sometimes used earplugs.

Maybe the tipping point was last summer.  Instead of ‘absence making the heart grow fonder’ it was ‘out of sight, out of mind’.  He took a picture of her to South Africa but over the six weeks we were there he rarely looked at her picture.  He started talking of other potential pets… mostly cats (no way I am highly allergic).  He played the field with bugs, spiders, toads, lizards and the like.  He even brought home a wild party of Madagascar Cockroaches from school over Thanksgiving.   Maybe he took Ticklish for granted.  I mean she wasn’t going anywhere.

Ticklish, though so cute, no longer captured his heart.  He got bored with her.  At times he would be affectionate.  Watching her run, offering her yogurt covered alfalfa balls.  Trying to coax her to use the little exercise ball.   And yes, she helped him with his science project this winter when he built a mouse trap and used her to test it out.  But after that project was over, it tried to pawn her off on his younger brothers.  ”Maybe a break would be good”,  Robin thought.  Jack and Drew were too young to really take on the responsibility either.  Maybe two boys were more than she could handle too.  After the short break when his brothers returned her to him, Luke’s love still waned.  She was a neglected pet bound  only to be cared for by the mother of her boyfriend.   Without Robin she may never have gotten food, water or a clean cage.

So Robin sent out a message to a group of friends offering to give her away to a loving home.  Luke didn’t care.  He was done.  He had moved on.  Someone offered to take her.  (Though turns out the mom didn’t ask the dad and he wasn’t too pleased.  Maybe I should throw in my earplugs) When Robin took her away yesterday morning, Luke cold-heartedly didn’t even say ‘goodbye’.

I hope he remembers this when a girl breaks his heart one day…  and it might even be a cat.