“Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts…
See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the livings God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it its called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness…
Today, if you hear his voice,
Do not harden your hearts.”
-Hebrews 3:7,12-13,15
This is something that I long for in the community of believers. I long for us to hold one another accountable for our unbelief. I want someone to come alongside me and to correct me when my actions are causing me to turn away from God—whether that means I am ignoring a homeless person on the street or not doing a job at 100% effort or even not conversing with God on a regular basis. I want people to ask the hard questions “are you living fully for Christ?” “Have you sinned against God or against another person lately?” “Are you turning towards Him today or away?” And I think the Bible makes it clear here that I, we, need this. We need to be asking and to be asked. We need to come together to work against the lures of sin. And we need to be listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit and not ignoring his leading in our lives.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Breakfast Conversations
This morning (Thursday) at the breakfast table, one of the girls sits down next to me and asks me, “It’s true that everyone farts, right?” I love life here.
Surrender
What does it mean to surrender all? What is the everything I can give to God and let Him control?
My money
My time
My clothes
My music
My thoughts
My work
My future
My past
My hopes
My things
My my my my which was never mine in the first place.
My money
My time
My clothes
My music
My thoughts
My work
My future
My past
My hopes
My things
My my my my which was never mine in the first place.
New Shoes
Today (Tuesday) I went with one of the other Tias to visit a nearby family and to bring them some items for which they had a need. The family consisted of a woman, her husband, their two daughters and a baby on the way. We were bringing them a mattress, some food and some shoes for the girls. It was a strange experience, but pretty cool too. This family lives in one of the newer developments here in Tijuana, and from the outside the houses look pretty nice. But then this family didn’t even have a bed or shoes for their kids. I don’t get it. And I know the same thing happens in the US. That people seem to have things all together but when you are invited into their lives and into their homes you find that they really don’t have much.
I think it’s kind of a spiritual analogy too. That we are always so focused on being okay, on being and appearing happy and well taken care of, but on the inside things can be in turmoil. And there is a certain aspect of relief and humbling that takes place when we invite others into this interior life that is not so nice as it seemed to be from the outside. Especially when we let God in to give us what we need. And when we can receive from Him what we need and not be too proud to dismiss His overwhelming generosity.
Anyway, the girls were 8 and 10 years old, were beautiful, and were thrilled to have their very own pair of shoes. It’s another good reminder that I have sooo much more than I need and that in my life I really haven’t had a lot of instances when I really had to rely on God to provide for my needs.
I think it’s kind of a spiritual analogy too. That we are always so focused on being okay, on being and appearing happy and well taken care of, but on the inside things can be in turmoil. And there is a certain aspect of relief and humbling that takes place when we invite others into this interior life that is not so nice as it seemed to be from the outside. Especially when we let God in to give us what we need. And when we can receive from Him what we need and not be too proud to dismiss His overwhelming generosity.
Anyway, the girls were 8 and 10 years old, were beautiful, and were thrilled to have their very own pair of shoes. It’s another good reminder that I have sooo much more than I need and that in my life I really haven’t had a lot of instances when I really had to rely on God to provide for my needs.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Good Moments
Making Memories in Mexico
• Walking on the beach with some kids who collected so many shells in their pockets that their pants hardly stayed on!
• Calling the little one Gordita
• Sleepover with the older girls in my room—we fit four of us on the floor where only two should have fit!!!
• Tasty smoothies made from milk, bananas, oatmeal and vanilla. Yum!
• Playing Barbies in my room and making dance videos with Cesia—I wish I could take her home with me!
• Making pancakes with chocolate chips—some of the girls helped me, but they turned out a bit burnt and weren’t very good
• Singing worship songs at church in Spanish… they sound much prettier that way
• Walking on the beach with some kids who collected so many shells in their pockets that their pants hardly stayed on!
• Calling the little one Gordita
• Sleepover with the older girls in my room—we fit four of us on the floor where only two should have fit!!!
• Tasty smoothies made from milk, bananas, oatmeal and vanilla. Yum!
• Playing Barbies in my room and making dance videos with Cesia—I wish I could take her home with me!
• Making pancakes with chocolate chips—some of the girls helped me, but they turned out a bit burnt and weren’t very good
• Singing worship songs at church in Spanish… they sound much prettier that way
Boys
The other day I was asked to be in charge of the boys. I have always wanted to have boys when I “grow up” one day and have a family of my own. But I’m not so sure about that after my experience over on the other side . Within 5 minutes I thought to myself… I can’t keep these kids under control! They are always fighting with each other and don’t listen when you ask them to do things. It’s pretty crazy. At least with the girls since I’m around all the time I have gained some authority in their eyes. In any case just as I was about to give up a group arrived to help out by just hanging out with the kids. And the boys respond really well to male attention and a lot of men happened to be in this group. So they came just in time to save me from losing my mind with the boys. I also found that if I participated a bit in their wrestling, they listened to me more when I told them to tone it down than they did when I just observed and kinda reffed their wrestling. It was a good reminder that to meet these kids where they’re at I really just need to love them and to play with them. And I have resolved myself to the fact that God knows what I can handle… so if I ever do have kids of my own and they’re boys I guess I’ll make it through!
Today (Sunday) I had to catch up on some homework with my study group. I kinda like when we don’t finish on Friday and have to do it on the weekend because there’s more freedom that way. For example, today my student had to study vocabulary words. Normally we’d sit in the classroom and go over them at the desk, but today I took her outside and told her a word and had her run to find the object. We ran all around the yard and through the house finding dolls, trains, balls, snapping our fingers, snorting. It was a fun day of “studying.” And this is a real blessing with my group of kids because as I’ve mentioned in other blogs they can be quite challenging and unmotivated. Creativity mixed with a warm, sunny day was the perfect blessing!
I also watched a great movie today called El Estudiante… if you can find it, you should check it out. It’s a good one. Kind of an Independent film or an artsy film along the lines of those motivational ones like Finding Forrester or Mr. Holland’s Opus, but in Spanish!
Today (Sunday) I had to catch up on some homework with my study group. I kinda like when we don’t finish on Friday and have to do it on the weekend because there’s more freedom that way. For example, today my student had to study vocabulary words. Normally we’d sit in the classroom and go over them at the desk, but today I took her outside and told her a word and had her run to find the object. We ran all around the yard and through the house finding dolls, trains, balls, snapping our fingers, snorting. It was a fun day of “studying.” And this is a real blessing with my group of kids because as I’ve mentioned in other blogs they can be quite challenging and unmotivated. Creativity mixed with a warm, sunny day was the perfect blessing!
I also watched a great movie today called El Estudiante… if you can find it, you should check it out. It’s a good one. Kind of an Independent film or an artsy film along the lines of those motivational ones like Finding Forrester or Mr. Holland’s Opus, but in Spanish!
How It Hurts
Today (Tuesday)I am asking a lot of hard questions about life at the orphanage. Here’s one instance. Things are donated here all the time so the kids are accustomed to getting “new” things. But they don’t know how to care for their belongings because they have no sense of ownership over them. The girls even stockpile all the underwear in one drawer in one of the bedrooms and most of them are falling apart or plain baggy on the girls. So today I was going to our storage unit to see if there were more to divvy out. When I looked up there most seemed to be used donated underwear and another intern and I thought we should buy some new ones so they might last longer. Well, another staff member here had spent a lot of time going through donations and saving these pairs. So, when we didn’t use them she was offended. And she also reasoned that the girls don’t care for their belongings and that they will just get used and mistreated anyway, so why not use the donated ones. And she has a point. But I am not here year round like she is and in my heart I want to give the girls new things. Even if they are just underwear. I guess my philosophy is that I am to give and give, and give up the expectation that my gifts will be treated well. My part is to give. Beyond that I am to teach the girls responsibility with their things. I heard a speaker put it like this: Working with the poor should be a reflection of God’s grace. We should give to them knowing that they may not value the gift. Like God gives us forgiveness time and again and His love knowing that we may not value it and treasure it. Some people say that that doesn’t teach people proper care for things or good stewardship. But what if God acted that way with me. I will only give you one more chance for forgiveness and if you mess it up, I won’t give it to you again… that wouldn’t go over so well. So, I think there is a responsibility to teach people how to care for things they are given. But I also think I need to keep giving and giving of myself and of material necessities even when people fail to care for them. But it is really hard to watch the misuse of things that you give people. It makes me ache sometimes to watch how the kids interact with their possessions or don’t value the time a volunteer is taking to be here with them. But then isn’t that just a tiny portion of the ache God must feel when we don’t value His presence with us. When we misuse our bodies, our money, our time. Today I see God. But today how I see Him hurts.
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