Some of the scenes are similar to what I witnessed a few weeks ago.   Some of the stats I was not aware of.

Wash and make yourselves clean.  Take your evil deeds out of my sight!  Stop doing wrong, learn to do right!   Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. ”Come now, let us reason together,”  says the LORD. ”Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson,  they shall be like wool.  ~  Isaiah 1:16-18

Friday night I had the privilege of experiencing IAH – Houston’s Int’l airport named after the 41st president.  (George, you might want to rethink this one.)  Of the countless airports I have visited in the world, it is my absolute least favorite.

If I was nice like my friend Matt, I might sent an open-letter to the airport.  But alas, I fall way short of the standard of Mr. Mikalatos – humorist, author, do-gooder, and overall nice guy.

Here’s my story:  I arrived at IAH from Mexico City Friday afternoon around 5:40 CST.   I was on a United ticket but the international flight was with Continental because they are both under the Star Alliance.   I had an 1 hour and 13 minutes to make my connection.  So I go through customs, wait for bag, re-check it, go through security again and look on the board for my connecting flight.  I knew I had to hoof it because I was at terminal C and had to go to terminal A.  Now IAH has an underground train that goes all the way.  I had ridden that when I first went through the week before.  But as I followed the signs to terminal A it took me to an above-ground train.

I waited for this train but they said it was not working.  When it finally arrives it even stopped again on the middle of the tracks before getting to terminal B.  It was then that I noticed it didn’t go to A but you had to go to another spot to catch a bus to A.  So I ran off the train when it finally rolled into the station.  I passed everyone to make it first down an escalator.  I was like OJ in the airport.  Oops bad analogy.

I had to run down a long corridor, then another, then another, then another.  (Who designed this airport!) Finally I made it where you catch the bus.  It just left.  I had to wait another 5 minutes.   Whent he bus arrived, the driver was kind and took me first to my gate rather than the four others on the bus who had later flights.  I ran to my gate and the two United agents said “you’re late. It just left”.  I had to explain why I was late.  As I did another passenger came running up.  He wasn’t on my bus so I assume he took the underground train. The male United agent didn’t seem to be concerned of my plight.  But the lady showed pity perhaps realizing they could have held the plane for us.  She said, “I am going to get you on a Continental flight.”  She puts me on the flight and prints off a form.  I still needed to show my ID to Continental gate agent to get a boarding pass but I was on….  So I was told.

I went to back through security and back to C.  I was early for this flight by almost 2 hours.  My cell phone battery had died on me and wouldn’t recharge but I paid for internet and skyped Robin telling her I was coming home later than I thought.  When the gate agent arrived, I walked up handed her my official United thingy and explained my story a 2nd time.  She said she couldn’t find me in the system and sent me to the Continental service counter.

The line at the Continental counter was long.  The employees running the counter must have received training from the Post Office.  The longer I waited the more I realized I was gonna cut it close to make this Continental flight.  Finally a lady came off her break and taking her sweet time finally logged-in and called me over.  Again, I explained my plight.  She says I am not in the system.  I decided to plea for her sense of compassion.  No luck.  She said I could call United and so I tried to explain the cell phone being kaput.  I asked if she could call United for me.  She said she couldn’t.  (At this time I was tempted to explain to her the true definition of customer service.  You know that she was hired to serve customers.) She wouldn’t even put me on standby and told me my only hope was going back to United.  I vowed then and there to never do business with Continental again.

So I go back to Terminal A and through security a 3rd time.  I knew at this point, I was staying in lovely Houston for the evening but perhaps United would put me up for the night.  When I got to United’s ticket counter no one was there as no more United flights were leaving that evning.  I picked up the courtsey phone and a nice lady took my call.  For the 4th time I explained my plight and she sounded like she cared.  She looked up in her computer and said “you are on a Continental flight that leaves in 5 minutes”.   I about screamed, ‘what?!?’   I am not sure what the computer deal was but I believe she was right because later I looked up United.com and under my itineraries I was listed on that flight.  My only conclusion is that Continental is incompetent.

It was too late to go back to Terminal C and make that flight – even if I parachuted in with George HW, I had no chance.   The only United person left in the building was a guy in baggage area.  He wasn’t supposed to but he put me on list for 6 am flight in the morning.  I determined that I could go to a hotel and hope United reimbursed me but even if I did, I’d have to leave at 4 am to be back at the airport.  So for the first time ever in countless trips, I sleep at an airport.

I found a chair that was for massages.  Rather lumpy where the massage rollers were but leathery soft none the less.  I felt sorry for myself until I thought of these kids I had met the day before.  See I had visited Casa Alianza in Mexico City that ministers to kids that are displaced and without a home.  I thought of those kids who sleep in parks or under bridges or in sewers.  At least I had a place to sleep and it was only for one night.  They are not safe and are targets for traffickers.  I was safe.  I was warm.  I had my travel mask so even the lights didn’t keep me awake.  (I didn’t really sleep but at least rested.)  My circumstance was not ideal but it was temporary.  And certainly I wasn’t being forced to do vile acts like the women and children who are being trafficked.

I made it to Denver the next morning and I slept on that entire flight.   I made it home to my wife and kids who love me.  Though I wouldn’t choose it, my ordeal was a gift to remind me that life is not easy and even my discomforts are small in comparison to those who need to be rescued.  (I am talking about those in Mexico but could possibly apply to anyone who flies Continental.)

I’m in Mexico City.  Last night, I went to a Safe House for women who have been rescuing from trafficking.  It’s called “Camino a Casa” (A way home).  There are 25 women (though most are merely girls) and some children of these girls.

They were rescued by the government and brought to “Camino a Casa” to leave.  The safe house is ironically a former drug dealers home that was now owned by the government and rented by the Camino a Casa Foundation.  They have a bakery the girls run making pastries to sell.  Some are now trusted to work outside at places like the Marriott.  One girl attends a school.   They receive counseling, physical direction and spiritual direction.  The biggest thing is the workers at the safe want is for them to understand they were victims and that they have value and worth.   The effort is to restore dignity to these girls who most likely have been abused all their lives and bring hope to the hopeless.

Not long after I first walk in, this cute little precious girl of 2 1/2 walked up.  She had the most infectious smile.  Of course I had to pick her up.  I ended holding her for about an hour.  Or when I wasn’t holding her,  she was trying to drag me around with her little hand proudly pointing out things in the house.

I learned when this little girl was a baby that she was burned with an iron by the man who held her mother captive threatening her mother if she tried to run away.  One of the directors, shared how when she and her mother arrived she wouldn’t let a man come near here.  Now a year later she wouldn’t this man leave.

The women at the safe house were precious but you could tell they had lost their innocence.  In some ways the response to me was no different than a teenager  with shy grins.  But for most, the habit of how they responded to men in their presence was there.  In turn, it was an opportunity with to return a smile that wasn’t sexual but one of compassion and love.

We ended up staying there from about 7 to midnight.  We had a dinner with the staff and those who support this ministry.  Sort of Mexico, it started late and went late but that was okay.  (Except I had gotten up at 4 am to make my first flight. So I was glad when they brought out coffee at 11 pm)

I teared up a lot last night.  (And now as I write)  Since  sharing after dinner was in Spanish and I couldn’t follow, I sat there thinkign of these girls.  I started thinking of how often perhaps they had been exploited.   How they were for the first time experiencing people who loved them.  But still how there lives have been forever marked by this horrific crime.

I thought of how Jesus said how if anyone hurt these precious innocent ones that it would be better for them to have a huge boulder tied around their neck and thrown into a sea to drown.  Woe to the world because of these things!  (Matthew 18:5-7)   I thought of the verse my sister-in-law texted me that morning before I boarded the plane.   Romans 12:21 “Do be overcome by evil, but overcome evil by doing good.”

I want to do good.  I want to do what is courageous.  I want to help end this and bring the glory of God and shine the light hope that He brings.

Tomorrow we will lunch after church at the home of a Senator and his wife, Rosi, who is a Congresswomen.  Rosi is the one who started Camino a Casa.  On Monday  and Tuesday (Or Tuesday and Wednesday – not totally sure), we will join a congressional forum on this issue.  These meetings have new life after seeing the faces of these dear girls and thinking of the countless others who are being trafficked in the same way.

No not the Radio/TV show of the 50′s…

Been reading the Book of Amos of late.   If you like judgment books, this is a good one as its 8 1/2 chapters full of God venting.   But beware, as it gets personal.

Amos, a shepherd prophet (what a combo!) in pre-Isaiah days starts off with pronouncements from God towards the naughty neighbors.  (Yeah, those pagans and there 3, no 4 sins get what’s coming to them.) But then starting midway through chapter 2, the judgments turn on the house of God.  Judah has disobeyed and followed idolatry.  But Israel?  It’s judgments of injustice… and it makes me feel uncomfortable.

“You sell the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals.”

“You  trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed.”

“You cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you who oppress the poor and crush the needy…”

“You who turn justice into bitterness and cast righteousness to the ground”

“You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions,  you will not live in them;  though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine.”

“You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.”

“Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying,  ’When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?’ — skimping the measure, boosting the price and cheating with dishonest scales, buying the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, selling even the sweepings with the wheat.”

I look at my own life.  I think I am not wealthy but when I compare myself to the world, I am swimming in wealth.  I have so much.  I have easy access to stuff.  I think I need things to satisfy me.  Surely I have bought sandals (or coffee or something) without thinking that I could give that same money to help the needy.  Do I leave my corners for the poor or do ‘I sweep up the scraps’ for my own prosperity?   Okay my house is not a stone mansion but maybe it is.   When I buy those cheap clothes do I even think a worker might have been exploited so I could save a few dollars?  Maybe a child?  Do I even think of the poor?  Do I even think of injustice?  Its easy such to turn my eyes.   I am no better than the Israelites.

There judgment was swift by a God who cares for the poor and is a defender of the weak.  In His mercy, He leaves behind some and promises that they will return from exile never to be uprooted again.  (That’s happening in our midst.)   But if God did not spare His the root, how do I think i will escape judgment?  How will the Western church escape our selfish excess?

But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! – Amos 5:24

What comes to mind when you think prostitution?  Probably not a good thought.  Some call it a victimless crime which by definition is an illegal act with no obvious injured party.  But its not.  There is a victim… the woman or the child.  The number of prostitutes worldwide is estimated at more than 50 million with 75% being between the ages of 13 and 25.  In surveys, 95% of these women and children say they want to leave.  95%!

It’s really modern day slavery, human trafficking.  It’s a lucrative business and it ranks second worldwide in the illicit trafficking behind drug trafficking and ahead of gun running.  It’s worse because the victims are human beings with value who are used and abused over and over and over again.

Saturday morning, I awoke and thought of Rahab.  (I ended the night thinking of her too while at an iEmpathize event. ) Every time Rahab is mentioned in the bible, her profession, her shame, is mentioned alongside her.  All except the genealogy of Jesus passage in Matthew 1:5.  Why?  Why don’t we say ‘Paul, the murderer’ or ‘David, the adulterer’?  Why is her past always mentioned?

Rahab spared the spies that were sent into the Promised Land and by this saved she herself and her family were saved from destruction. (Joshua 2 and 6).  She acknowledges that the God of the Israelites is the God of heaven and earth.  Her acts of faith are made mention in the Hall of Faith (Heb 11:31).  When James gives examples of those who had faith and works, he mentions Abraham and Rahab.

But she is a prostitute?  (I know some versions tag a note that perhaps the Hebrew word is ‘innkeeper’ but the writer of Hebrews and James don’t follow this supposed translation.) She also lies?   How worthy is this?  Of course, Abraham and Peter for example lied too.  But we cut them some slack even though they lied to save their own hide and in Abraham’s case perhaps even caused his wife to be raped by Pharaoh as a result.  But Rahab?  What a liar!  Even though she lies to save the lives of these spies and God’s people.

But why still refer to her as a prostitute?  Does she always carry this shame?  I don’t think so.  She is referred to as Boaz’s mother in Matthew 1.  There’s a clue.  Boaz who has held honor in the book of Ruth would have been shamed if his mother was shamed.  I think Joshua, James and the write of Hebrews are pointing to her story as one of redemption, and restoration.  God took on her shame.  She was justified and made anew by her faith.  She was a victim of abuse that was rescued by men who treated her with dignity.  Think about it, they could have decided a prostitute, a pagan prostitute was not worth sparing even if they did make an oath.  But Joshua (Yeshua, a type of Jesus), says “Go into her house and bring her out according to your oath.”  He is saying she is worth saving.  She is honorable.,  She has been made righteous.  She is valuable.

In a few weeks, I am going down with a friend to Mexico to be a part of a forum that is the start of a Congressional Committee on helping end this issue in their country.  (Mexican Congress, not US).  It’s a total God-story of how I came to be invited.  I feel like Brian and I are like those two spies  handpicked by Yeshua.  This journey is the beginnings of a partnership with some ministries in Mexico and a network of churches and ministries in Boulder.

Everyone hasn’t weighed in on the name but as I studied this passage, I thought of Red Cord (or Cuerda Roja in Spanish).  Among those who want to end trafficking, they don’t like using the word ‘prostitute’ since it carries a false perception so in many ways using the story of Rahab could send the wrong message.  But I was struck by this symbol, Rahab let down the spies through a window with a scarlet cord (or rope).  It was this same scarlet cord that was to be the symbol that she was to tie to her window when they came back to destroy Jericho.   That cord symbolized her protection, her resuce, her redemption.  A cord is a strong bind of several threads.  It’s hard to break.  Like our partnership, it is made of several coming together as one for one purpose and in this case, of rescuing a woman from this form of slavery.  The cord in the story is scarlet like our sins (Isaiah 1:18) and the scarlet blood of the Messiah by which He rescues us from our sin and shame and redeems us as His own.

So unless I get major pushback, I am going with Cuerda Roja as the name of our effort in hopes that we will be like a Scarlet Cord of rescue to countless thousands of children and women in Mexico who need rescuing.

Last night I had a dream.  Okay in reality it was this morning and not long before my alarm went off. A good friend and cohort of mine had prepared a feast.  A lot of people were there and like most dreams it was a random assortment of people whose are not connected in real life.   I am not sure where we were but it seemed like a retreat house.  It was packed.  But I was frustrated.

You see each time the food came out for some reason I was gone. By the time I arrived, the food was… gone that is.  (And I could tell it was pleasing to the palate only because Rich was the cook but also because everyone was raving about it.) It was right there, but I couldn’t taste it.  People were having thirds in fact and I had none.

So I waited for the last batch to come from where ever it was being cooked.  I waited and waited.  The crowd peeled off.  Robin went back to our room.  In my dream it was late.. way late.   It wasn’t that I was hungry per se, it was that I felt left out.  I felt like deserved it.  I was stubbornly going to wait.

So then it came – huge bins and bins of food.  Ironically in impatience I had gotten up and lost my place again but this time I was determined to get my food.  I pushed my way back to get the food: huge slabs of some kind of meat BBQ’ed.  I remember even BBQ’ed fish and asparagus and other vegatables.  I had decided to grab my own bin and fill it as high as I could with food saving some for future days at this place not knowing how many days that was or if meals were always inculded.  In fact I determined that it was too late to eat but I was still getting food.  I found some aluminum foil to put over the top and starting carrying this scolding hot tray of food.

But the thing was when these bins came out other people had arrived too.  I was so busy trying to not get left out again that I had not interacted with them at all.  In fact, I was sad as I walked away.  These people were joyous and what I realized who they were.  Some were some Burmese refugee families that I know.  Others were some Africans I have met and other people of color.  One couple that had arrived was one I know whose son has been in the hospital of late.  I think some were even those who had been working to serve and prepare the food.

As I woke up it dawned on me… these were the poor, the sick, the needy, the nations, the people on the bottom.  And I was taking more food that I needed.  They didn’t seem to care though.  They were joyous that there was a feast and that thy had somethign to eat.   I was so caught up into myself that I didn’t interact with them.  I was  worse than those who had earlier taken thirds when I had none.

Yesterday I heard John Ortberg speak to a group of pastors in the Denver area.  Ortberg quoted Dallas Willard and said (I’m paraphrasing from my notes) that we can guage how our soul is by whether we are becoming more or less irritated and more or less discouraged.    That when peace dwells within we are less discouraged and less irritated.

Okay it was just a dream but it was real.  My soul seems like the man I was in the dream – irritated, discouraged.  Not sure why other than I am too preoccupied with myself, my own world, my own needs wants.

I am not enjoying the feast that’s available.  I am not willing to wait.  I am not willing to identify like Christ did with those who really are in need.  I am greedy.  I am a glutton.  I am in need of grace.

I hope to wake up.

Outside a village in Africa sat 10 people who were infected with AIDs. It should not have been a rare site since 5% of the adult population of Sub-Sahara Africa are living with HIV. Of these 10, 6 were women and 2 were children.  One man was a homosexual. But lest he face the death penalty in his own country, he told no one. (BTW, the President of this nation – Uganda – became a born-again follower of Christ in high school.  Is this what it means to follow Christ?)

It so happened that Jesus made his way past this village.  Not the Jesus we might imagine or we have created in our own minds. (Plug here to buy my friends book the comes out in 2010.) But the real Savior.  One full of grace and truth.  A man of sorrows and acquainted with much grief.  The healer.  The redeemer.  The Promised One.

These modern day lepers met him but they didn’t get too close.  We know we can’t get AIDs from a touch but they had been outcast and rejected. The were the living dead in a land with no place left to bury them. Yes, there are the anti-viral treatments that can keep these lepers alive but few of them could afford it.  Unless they lived in Botswana where the President has chosen to give it away, they have little hope.

“Unclean” their lives cried out to the world!  And the world in turn avoided them.  We have turned our eyes from this epidemic.  ”What can we do?”,  we ask. ” It’s too painful.  Not my world.”

But to this gentle healer, their voices cried out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”.   Mercy.   We need mercy.  You are the Master who can give it.  Don’t turn away from us!

He didn’t.  God gives mercy to whom he chooses but He also gives mercy to all who in their free will ask.  A lovely paradox.

He took a good look at them. (And don’t think He was afraid to get too close. He broke bread with a leper leaning on him. ) He wasn’t afraid of his life being affected by their’s.  He knew shame. He knew rejection.  He – the exact representation of God – choose to share in their humanity.  The Creator became the created.  Not jsut a created.  A man of poverty.  An outcast himself.  The Exalted One became like of the lowest of humanity.   He was the Master but he knew what it was to be ‘a leper’.

“Go, show yourselves to the priests.”, He said. For only a priest could declare them clean.

They went, and while still on their way, became clean. Notice they weren’t clean until they left Jesus’ presence.  They obeyed by faith.  What if they didn’t become clean along the way?  The Priests would declare them unclean.  It was a step of faith.   Funny how things never work the way we think!   Sometimes Jesus healed immediately.  Sometimes He didn’t even have to be there.  Sometimes it was in stages. (“I see but people look like walking trees.”) And here, he didn’t even happen until they left.

One of the lepers, when he realized that he was healed, turned around and came back, shouting his gratitude, glorifying God. He kneeled at Jesus’ feet, so grateful. He couldn’t thank him enough—and he was the homosexual.  Jesus said, “Were not ten healed? Where are the nine? Can none be found to come back and give glory to God except this sinner?” Then he said to him, “Get up. On your way. Your faith has healed and saved you.”

That word ‘saved’ in the Greek is the same word in Ephesians 2:8, 9 when Paul writes that we are saved by faith.   To this man, it was a spiritual healing as well as a physical one. The kingdom of God brings healing to the whole man.  The 10 were healed and set free. They all experienced the power of Jesus to change their lives.  The one, the outcast of outcasts, found healing in his soul through gratitude and real worship.

This was no bait and switch work of compassion.  ”Hey nothing’s working, let’s try good deeds.”   No exposure strategy to get to the real kicker.  He would have healed him anyway because He was a man of compassion.  It also wasn’t:  ”shoot I am tired of being chastised as a follower of Christ.  Why don’t I do some good so people will think Jesus is cool.”  But if you want a Samaritan to think, “What the heck I am doing going to a Priest?  Not like they would accept me in a synagogue.  That man, He is the real Priest.  He deserves my praise, my gratitude, my worship.   If that’s a Jesus I could leave all to follow.”    If we want to bring about the Kingdom of God, maybe we need to live and love like the King.  Maybe this limitless love and power of Christ needs to be displayed.

How will I respond?   Do I grieve over this day set aside as World AIDs Day?  Do I see it as a opportunity to live out the Kingdom of God, to live as Christ lived?  Will I look the other way or avoid that village?  Do I look beyond someone being a ‘Samaritarian’ and see with His eyes?

Oh Jesus have mercy on our world!  We acknowledge our promiscious lifestyles have brought about the crises.  We have not lived as you desire.  Oh Master, have mercy.  Many are dying.  Many children. All ones created in your imagine.  Countless grieve over this loss.  This is not how the it should be.  May your Kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Editor’s note: I’m writing this from church as the 2nd service is near.  Robin & I attended 1st service but our kids like classes so much they want to go to both.  We don’t want to discourage it so we just stay for both when we can.

Friday night, Luke and I attended the opening night of A Christmas Carol put on by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival.  A good production, I liked how they had actors play multiple characters and adapted it in a way that highlighted Dickens’s literary skills.   I have to admit even though like most I thought I was well familiar with the story, I think I had missed most of the main points before.  Like I think its a play about an old man who hates Christmas and needs to be reacquainted with its true meaning.  That’s partly right because old Scrooge does scoff at Christmas.  But its not just about a man who is not Merry.  I mean we often can take this story to just encourage us to shop and spend more.  That’s Christmas right!  But the real point Dickens is making is that this is a story of a hardened old man whose heart is cold towards the poor.

In Stave 1, Scrooge is visited by two gentlemen raising money for charity.  When one says that ‘many thousands are in want of common necessities; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts’, Scrooge incredulously asks, ‘are there no prisons… and the Union workhouses, are they still in operation?’.    Scrooge says he will give nothing, that he supports the institutions he mentioned before.  When told that these people might die, Scrooge says that he would rather them die and thus decrease the surplus population.   These words will literally come back to haunt him when visited by the Ghost of Christmas Present.

When Marley’s ghost visits Scrooge and explains why he is fettered by chains and how the chain is one he forged himself in life by his own free will.   He explains that he misused his opportunity in life.  Scrooge, applying it to himself as well, says, “But you were a good business man.”

Here’s Marley’s reply:  ”Business!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

What will be my Christmas Carol this season?   Do I need to see ghosts in chamber room for my eyes to be opened?  Is mankind my business?  Do I think of Christmas as getting, buying, spending and Black Friday deals?  Do make charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence my business?  Do I really understand Christmas and why Christ came?  Do I embrace the Great Commandment of loving God and loving others as myself?  Or just the Great Commission (or what I’ve limited it to) and proclamation message?

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

Yesterday Luke and I worked at the Community Food Share barrel in Wal-mart.  Luke is in Cub Scouts and this was a chance to earn a badge.  He stood there with Ethan who is another cubscout.  Ethan’s dad Kirk, who is the Den Leader, and I stood there with them basically telling them how much longer they had to stand and reminding them to hold up bags.

See basically, the folks at Community Food Share know that people are more likely to pick a bag to fill with non-perishable items if some cute little cub scout is there.  We didn’t really interact unless somebody came up and asked for a bag or what it was for.  Just stood and smiled for several hours.  Ethan and Kirk were there from 11:30 to 2:00.  Luke and I joined them for the last two hours.  We would been on time but we had a little incident.  

Here’s some of my observations along with a few ‘supposes’…

1.  Saw a lot of interesting people come through Wal-mart’s door but only maybe one who qualifies for this.

2.  Most people tend to avoid looking at you. We weren’t soliciting, just standing there.  Maybe they felt guilty.  Perhaps if you turn your eyes to the needs of the poor, they might go away.  I know I’ve done that.  I’d say 90% avoided eye-contact.  Interesting to me.  Convicting.

3. Kids look.  Maybe it’s because two sharp-looking little boys in uniforms were there but I bet 90% or maybe even 100% of the kids looked at the barrel and us standing there.  After what I saw if I was ever with my boys, even if I had given before, I’d a take a bag.  What a great lesson to teach your kids especially in the season of getting…  I mean giving!   Kids notice without making judgments.  We judge.  We are hardened.  We decide if someone really needs ‘a handout’.  I know my kids notice.  First time they saw a homeless person they asked why they didn’t have a home and why they needed food.  I want to be a giving person but I certainly want to practice it in front my kids too and explain why and how blessed we are.  Let them know that many people even in America go hungry and we can help.

3.  The bags are a great idea but perhaps intimating. Maybe some might think, ‘I can’t fill a whole bag’.  Kirk pointed out that if everyone just bought one item they would have gotten tons.

4.  People who had given before tend to let you know. I heard, “I did this yesterday” a lot.    I smiled and thanked them.  I didn’t feel like they were bragging I think they wanted to let us know they cared about what we cared about.

5. People surprise you. One family came back to get two more bags.  After checking out they dropped their bags off.  They had filled 4 grocery bags.  All that was left in their cart was one bag of dog food.  I saw the Wal-mart worker checking their receipt (I thought they only did that at Sam’s) and wondering where all the stuff they had purchased was.

6.  I wrote before that Luke and Ethan get a badge over this but that wasn’t the motivation. When Luke got antsy (who could blame him), I simply said, “Just a little bit longer, bud.  Think of how some family might not go hungry this Thanksgiving because you gave out one more bag.”   He’d straightened up, look toward the front door and hold up his bag for anyone who wanted to give.    In fact, when I posed the idea to Luke last week as I drove him to school, once I explained what the food bank was and how it helped people, he jumped at the opportunity.  I was proud of him.

Beam Africa is the ministry where our church is partnered in South Africa.  Our family spent a month there this past summer.  They run a development centre in a township – perhaps one of the worst townships in Pretoria.   Back in August, thieves broke in and stole all of their computers.   At the end of September, Louis and Erika Lingenfelder, who run the ministry, came to America for a month.  They visited with us here in Colorado as well as others in Michigan and Missouri.   While they were in America, they constantly were getting updates of people trying to break in.   So they were often trying to coordinate with those back in South Africa in terms of beefing up the security.

Wednesday, Erika and Louis flew back home.  On the plane, Erika said she was praying knowing that these thieves were just bent on getting in.  When they arrived, they learned that these thieves succeeded.  Someone had broken in again and this time took everything.  They torn a hole in the roof.  They vandalized and broke all the equipment… including the new alarm system.  All the computers that BEAM uses to train adults and kids in the community were stolen.  They must have had keys to the new safety gates  and simply unlocked them.  That which they couldn’t unlock, they kicked in, stealing the petty cash and going into every office.

As I write this, I am this, I am reminded of pejorative statements I have heard within the last year that implied students today will gravitate toward ministry of service just because its easy.  Implying what they are calling students to do is the real work or a higher calling.

Seeing firsthand the struggles of those who engage daily in trying to help those on the bottom, those thoughts can’t be further from the truth.  While everyone wrestles with spiritual poverty no matter if who you minister to, when you throw in the struggles of human poverty and injustice its overwhelming.   When I worked as a campus director of a ministry, I never worried about being robbed. (Though our ‘Real Life Cafe’ was broken in once and someone stole our coffee pots and my jacket. But I think they ‘broke in’ because we forgot to lock the door.  Not like I had to bar the windows, use electronic fencing and high tech security cameras.) I didn’t really have to change my life much at all.  I can count on my hand the times I personally felt threatened or in danger.  I hardly ever agonized through the night about those I ministered too. (Maybe I should have more.) Certainly the students I worked with had issues they faced but nothing like seeing children grow up in child-parented homes, or people with no hope of finding employment, or women dying of AIDs, or knowing that many kids you minister to every day go without basic needs and do not live in a safe environment.

Wherever God calls us in terms of building His kingdom is valid.  We simply need to be following Him and obeying His call.   But I believe working among those suffering from injustice are involved in the hardest ministry there is.  Maybe not just giving a dollar to a homeless person.  But when someone gives up there life to truly fight for others, to bring the Kingdom of light to those trapped in darkness, its a sacrifice like any other.  A couple of days ago I met with a friend who has chosen to follow the Lord and work to bring about awareness and change in the vile injustice of the human trafficking issue.  Brad sold his home in Boulder.  He left a safe job as a pastor.  Not to mention he now works among an issue that won’t let him sleep at night.  All because God has called him to this ministry of  helping set captives free.

Erika and Louis also stayed up the night they arrived home.  They had to work because of this break-in but also spent time crying out to the Lord.  At one point they asked if they were really busy doing what they should be doing.  Perhaps it wasn’t worth all this.  Maybe they should just walk away from it all, throw in the towel, give up.   But Erika wrote that it was as if the Holy Spirit came and made her forehead as hard as flint.   No.   He had called them to this.  This battle is worth it.  He will make all things new.  His Kingdom will come and His will shall be on earth as it is in Heaven.