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Ministries
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Message shared at Grace Church, March 2, 2008
O LORD, you are my rock of safety. Please help me; don't refuse to answer me. For if you are silent, I might as well give up and die. 2 Listen to my prayer for mercy as I cry out to you for help, as I lift my hands toward your holy sanctuary. 3 Don't drag me away with the wicked - with those who do evil - those who speak friendly words to their neighbors while planning evil in their hearts. 4 Give them the punishment they so richly deserve! Measure it out in proportion to their wickedness. Pay them back for all their evil deeds! Give them a taste of what they have done to others. 5 They care nothing for what the LORD has done or for what his hands have made. So he will tear them down like old buildings, and they will never be rebuilt! 6 Praise the LORD! For he has heard my cry for mercy. 7 The LORD is my strength, my shield from every danger. I trust in him with all my heart. He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy. I burst out in songs of thanksgiving. 8 The LORD protects his people and gives victory to his anointed king. 9 Save your people! Bless Israel, your special possession! Lead them like a shepherd, and carry them forever in your arms.
The islands of hope are local churches. They have homework help, they play, sing, dance and learn about Jesus, mostly by feeling His love through the adults and older Compassion children there. These churches don't care where the kids come from, how they dress, what their homes look like, or how many are in the family. In fact they want to reach out to the most needy. But the challenge is that they only have resources to help kids who are sponsored. We live on an island here on Moloka'i. And we know something about limited local resources and needing outside help. We depend on the barge and air traffic for most of our food, fuel and commodities. When they're cut off, we run out of everything pretty fast. Remember Thanksgiving when all the turkeys were sold out? Well, I'm talking about families of 6 whose only meal for the day is one cup of noodles. Of the homes we visited, none had running water or bathroom facilities. One had a toilet in the lane shared by 10 other families, with a hose outside the door that functioned as a shower. The problem of poverty seems so overwhelming. But we can make a difference, one child at a time. I need to show you something. These are real train tracks.
Compassion has a new program before sponsorship. It's for moms and
their children 0-3 years old. They come together to learn about the
promise in Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you,"
declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans
to give you hope and a future." And those plans are for the moms
and for their children. This family The Bible teaches us that God knew us, and loved us before we were
ever born. That's a big deal. If God knows you then it means He knows what you're going through in life. It means you haven't been forgotten. It means you're not all alone, no matter how you feel. Sponsorship gives us a way to help give these children and their families a concrete way to believe that truth. And what happens when a child grows up and is no longer a Compassion
child? A new possibility is the Leadership Development Program. It is
highly competitive scholastically, but once a student is accepted they
can go to college for four years. These are some of the LDP students
- a teacher who will graduate this month, a chemical engineer, a business
major, and even a pastor who is reaching out to the tribes in the north
and to Thailand. Together these students are sponsoring their own Compassion
child, even though it is at great personal cost. This is Clarisse Caballero, one of Scotty's and my Compassion children.
I had an amazing week with twenty-three other pastors from all over
Hawaii.
We had so many experiences together that I cannot begin to share with you this morning. But I am confident that we all came back changed, with a greater sense of humility, mission and purpose because of what we shared. I hope and pray you and others will get a glimpse and perhaps join us in the ways God is leading us. This trip was not an accident. God is trying to speak to the church in Hawaii in a new way. Last fall I spent a lot of time talking about how God wants us to strengthen and build up the core of our lives. As a reminder, when it comes to our bodies, there's a difference between exercising and building up certain muscles and building up core strength. When the core is solid, all the muscles get stronger and work together. Our bodies then get better balanced. This better balance helps keep us from being injured. And finally, a strong core recovers from injury much quicker and more completely. We know that God transforms our lives through trials and adversity not comfort and ease (James 1) so we need a strong core. Part of strengthening our core means reaching out to others. This morning we prayed for Jesus, the true bread of the world, to live in us and we in Him. But we're not supposed to hoard this bread. We need to share it. We need to reach out to the poor with the good news that God loves them or we are out of balance. More than 2000 verses in the Bible deal with issues of wealth and money. It's the second most talked about topic in all of scripture. More than 560 versus that talk about our obligation to help the poor. Do you remember Matthew 11:4-6? It's where Jesus is giving John the Baptist's disciples proof that He's the messiah "Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is being preached to the poor." Material poverty is a social evil which God opposes and which He expects
us, His church, to meet. Spiritual poverty on the other hand is a spiritual
virtue He wants all of us to have. Is it to sponsor a child yourself or with your children or grandchildren? Is it to challenge ourselves as a church to support a Leadership Development student for $ 325 a month together? Has God been speaking to you about attending Honolulu 2008 next month? If you come, you can hear one of the LDP students share her story and I'll even introduce you. Maybe there's a call we can't even hear yet, but if we are faithful in prayer, in reading our Bibles and in reaching out, God will lead us. Church, we have been blessed to be a blessing. Praise God! And thank you all for praying me home! Join me in saying Psalm 23 together… |
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and
its constant companion, hunger. Everywhere you look is the grim reminder
of broken lives, disease and hopelessness. There are no shattered dreams
because this type of poverty kills all dreams before they even form.
All
of these students still live with their families in the neighborhoods
where they grew up. They continue to help their churches reach out to
younger Compassion children there.
Here
she is with her twin sister Charisse and their mom and me. 
