So, I love to write and you're going to find that I use this blog as a platform to megaphone the cries within my heart and the hearts of my Not Forgotten comrades. :-) Cries relating to the needs of the people in the world around us, frustrations we experience when we can't provide for those needs immediately, and encouragements on how we continue to press on amidst those frustrations. I frequently read a blog written by a missionary in Costa Rica. She's honest. Sometimes shockingly so...and this particular post put picture to how we feel sometimes when we try to tackle an issue that we could never begin to conquer ourselves. This week she talked about poverty. The poverty that so often sends the children we're fighting for to the streets. She acknowledges it's overwhelming size and how the Lord calls her to face it. Remembering that only He is big enough...
Feeding the Ducks
I'm gonna go fight poverty for two and a half hours.
2.5 hours on a Tuesday morning to solve the biggest problem in the world. What a joke.
We will show up with a bag full of brad and an armload of bananas, and the children will clamber around us like ducks at a pond. A bunch of little ducklings, falling all over each other for a bit of bread and a soft pat on the head.
And for 2 and a half hours we will laugh and play and eat, and we will talk about Jesus. And when we leave, they will be just as poor as when we arrived. Poverty taunts us as we drive away.
It's overwhelming.
The problem is so big, and we are so small. It feels ridiculous.... showing up to war wielding a loaf of bread.
Of course that's how David showed up. Just a shepherd boy with some bread for his brothers, a kid who was quick with a sling shot. He chose for battle against a giant, not a sword, or the kings armor, but five smooth stones. And he won.
He said to the giant:
"You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God is Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD's and he will give all of you into our hands." -1 Samuel 17
I kind of love that.
I'm going to feed the ducks, now.
And then, with all my might, I will hurl a tiny pebble at their giant enemy. And I hope it hurts like hell.
-Jamie, The Very Worst Missionary
Feeding the Ducks
I'm gonna go fight poverty for two and a half hours.
2.5 hours on a Tuesday morning to solve the biggest problem in the world. What a joke. We will show up with a bag full of brad and an armload of bananas, and the children will clamber around us like ducks at a pond. A bunch of little ducklings, falling all over each other for a bit of bread and a soft pat on the head.
And for 2 and a half hours we will laugh and play and eat, and we will talk about Jesus. And when we leave, they will be just as poor as when we arrived. Poverty taunts us as we drive away.
It's overwhelming.
The problem is so big, and we are so small. It feels ridiculous.... showing up to war wielding a loaf of bread.
Of course that's how David showed up. Just a shepherd boy with some bread for his brothers, a kid who was quick with a sling shot. He chose for battle against a giant, not a sword, or the kings armor, but five smooth stones. And he won.
He said to the giant:
"You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God is Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD's and he will give all of you into our hands." -1 Samuel 17
I kind of love that.
I'm going to feed the ducks, now.
And then, with all my might, I will hurl a tiny pebble at their giant enemy. And I hope it hurts like hell.
-Jamie, The Very Worst Missionary
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