On Wednesday evening I headed back down to Mexico with the staff to pray, hand out soup talk with the poor and desperate. It was a cold night on Wednesday, not cold for those of you reading in central Canada or Seattle, but cold none the less. The wind was blowing off of the Pacific and dropping the temperatures below normal for out here.
As we do each week we parked the cars and broke up into 3 groups and went off to start the evening with prayer. On the drive down to Mexico I was asking Jesus what he wants to see happen in TJ. I have been involved with the homeless for a lot of years now and I have discovered something profound. Handing out soup and hot chocolate with prayers is not going to end poverty or desperation, we need to do more.
As I said above “Handing out soup and hot chocolate with prayers is not going to end poverty or desperation, we need to do more.” In saying this, I am not downplaying prayer or hot chocolate, both are good and needed, but it cannot stop there. We need to get kids into school, parents jobs, alcohol and drug addictions stopped and poverty and desperation ended.
The thing that happens so often is that when a family is in their most desperate time of need instead of the church coming to them to offer hope and life some hustler out to make money at the expense of others gets to them first and offers them a way out. The way out is not a way out at all, it is just a deeper spiral into death and destruction. What do we as the church, the body of Christ need to do?
That is what we are trying to figure out on these Wednesday nights. It reminds me of a story in the bible where Jesus comes in the path of a prostitute. The pharisees throw this woman at Jesus feet and pick us stones to kill her. Jesus doesn’t just pray for her, but he points out the sin of the accusers, encourages, rebukes and affirms the girl accused of prostitution and writes something in the ground. It seems as though the point was made. The accusers drop their rocks, the girl goes away with freedom and understanding and Jesus moves on.
I pray that God gives us His strategy to reach and bring freedom to Him kids, both the oppressed and oppressors in TJ, Mexico.
I love that chronicle your adventures with Christ like this Phil. It helps kick my apathetic butt somedays when I’m content to just sit around and feel comfortable and unchallenged.
Thanks Andy, me too.