I had to write kind of a blog describing my journey of how God lead me to go to Ethiopia, so I thought I would share it with you guys! This is going to be a long post. So read when you have a few minutes! When you ask God to break your heart for what breaks His, it can be dangerous. Be forewarned: this is a prayer God loves to answer! This is how He answered this prayer for me. It happened at Ellerslie, a Bible school in Windsor, Colorado founded by Eric and Leslie Ludy. It was May of 2012, and I was attending the Set Apart Girl conference hosted by Leslie, who was sharing their adoption story. In the middle of the story, Eric received an urgent email from a colleague at a mission in Haiti that they support, and felt led to share it. God interrupted everything to bring to our attention one baby girl in Haiti who had been severely injured and abandoned to die. Somehow she got taken to this mission. As Eric read the email aloud as a picture of this baby girl appeared on the screen, tears began streaming down my face as I felt the Father’s heart breaking for this one precious child. At that moment I realized something. God doesn’t see a mass of the one-hundred-and-sixty-something million orphans in the whole world. He sees each individual child. And His heart breaks for each and every one. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room as we immediately joined together in corporate prayer for this baby’s survival. The next morning we found out that not only did she survive throughout the night, but she had drastically improved so much that it only could have been divine intervention. The picture shown of her that morning didn’t even look like the same baby that was near death the day before. God had given me the incredible opportunity to take part in a miracle in one baby orphan’s life. That experience planted a seed in my heart; it was the desire to work on the African mission field in an orphan rescue ministry. It was as if I saw Jesus Himself going to Africa and he turned back to look at me, inviting me to come with Him. He didn’t send me to Africa to start my own ministry. He asked me to join Him in the work He’s already doing in Africa. I. Said. Yes. Saying yes to God can be dangerous. If you say yes, He will move you into action. But my life didn’t change all the sudden. From then on, I knew I was going to Africa some day, but I didn’t know how or when. But over a year later, God put an ache in me that would not settle. I had to go to Africa. So, I googled “short term missions trips to Africa,” and among several other ministries, found World Orphans. As I read about them and their Ethiopia trip to minister to orphans, I immediately knew it was the one. I felt a peaceful exhilaration come over me as I went through the process of becoming part of the team. And here I am, a little over a month out from my first adventure in Africa. Here is what God is teaching me as I prepare for this adventure. First, when God truly breaks your heart for the lost, you cannot do nothing. Christ love compels you to action. If it doesn’t move you into action, it’s not love. You can have nice warm fluffy feelings toward those in need, but if it doesn’t go past your feelings, it’s worthless. James 2:15-16 says, “Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” Secondly, I believe God calls us to take care of the widow and the orphan by first meeting their physical needs so that their hearts will be opened to the Gospel, and God can then take care of their spiritual needs. “He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing” (Deuteronomy 10:18). If we are Christ’s hands, how are they supposed to have their physical needs of food and clothing met if we don’t meet them? Lastly, I believe God loves each child so much that He would have sent His Son for only one if He had to! So if each child in the world is that precious to Him, how much should we as God’s children seek to love and treasure each one and bring them into His family? There’s something incredibly wrong in the church when we don’t care about what God is passionate about. It is clear from scripture that God cares deeply about the fatherless. There are over thirty places in scripture where God expresses His concern and care for the fatherless and the widow. If God is that concerned about them, I think we should be too. James 1:27 has been tugging at my heart lately. It says, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” I never realized how important this was to God until now, because it’s not encouraged in the church as much as it should be. But I believe God is doing a new thing; I can see the church being slowly awakened to the reality of the orphan crisis and how God feels about it. I am so thankful that He has revealed it to me! I want my heart to beat in rhythm with God’s. That means when His heart breaks, mine does too. But I am okay with that, because God’s heart was also broken for me. Maybe that dying baby girl in Haiti pierced my heart so much because God gave me a glimpse of how He sees me. I was dying spiritually, desperately struggling to survive on my own. And when God looked at me, in my pitiful, wretched, ugly state of need, it pierced His heart. He loved me, right where I was. And He continues to love me, with a ferocity I will never be able to comprehend. He has graciously adopted me into His family even though I could never do a thing to deserve it. That’s why I am going to Ethiopia. Christ’s love compels me. My desire is to go love the orphan, the widow and the oppressed and bring them into God’s family, because that is what Christ did for me! I want to introduce the fatherless to their Father. Knowing the embrace of your Abba Father compels you to invite others to share in it as well! Every child deserves a family. I am thrilled that I get to be part of God’s plan of adoption and partner with Him in bringing more children into His family! “Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “’Abba, Father.’” Galatians 4:6
Posted on: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 19:50:09 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015