segunda-feira, 21 de fevereiro de 2011
Street Kids
For a person who has lived at Inhaminga, “in the bush”, where when it doesn't rain 70% of the population go hungry, poverty shouldn't be something new. But the impact urban poverty has in my heart reaches deeper, and makes it ache to the point where I feel it tight, almost wanting to pop inside my chest.
It is true the people in the rural areas do work a lot, walk long distances, and have many struggles. But there is something about the bush that is comforting to me... I don’t know if it is the beautiful landscape or the stronger sense of family life and community… or maybe it is just the lack of trash lying all around! I think that’s it!
The crowed cities: the noise, the lack of privacy, the bad smells, trash everywhere, lack of security… all these things have always made me avoid city life!
When God brought me to Nacala, my greatest comfort was that the school was 7km away from town and the campus was at the beach, where we could have a taste of “bush”, out of crowded civilization!
But need always takes us in, to downtown, to the middle of all that mess! What can we do? Each time we go, it is the same fight... kids begging, kids leading blind people begging, old people begging, blind old people begging!
In the beginning you don’t know what to do. Sometimes you give, sometimes you don’t! When you give you feel bad because you know that a coin is really not what they need! When you don’t give you feel even worse thinking if that person will get enough to eat that day! There is no way out of feeling bad!
Quickly you discover that if you give to someone, soon enough you’ll have a multitude of beggars around you everywhere you go in town. Like vultures around dead meat the common thought seems to be: "New meat in town, let’s take advantage while we can!"
At this point you are losing your patience, because amongst the beggars there are always the thieves, and even the ones who aren’t professional thieves will rob you if they get a chance! You stop giving anything to anyone. You find out that if you are very rude to everyone, never give anything to anyone, gradually you get bothered less; you can do your shores quickly! But something else, that you might not notice soon, also starts happening: you stop noticing people, you only see them as obstacles you must go through to get “what you need done”!
And one day you wake up and notice that even though you came to that place to help people, your heart is so hard and your attitude is not helping anyone!
So then, what do you do?
I went through each of those phases and finally came to understand that I must be attentive to the Holy Spirit! I have no obligation to give anything to anyone, but I’m also not forbidden to do it. I must listen to the whisper inside, pay attention to whom that whisper is directing me and most and foremost: LOOK AND SEE PEOPLE!
When that happened to me, I didn’t see beggars and thieves anymore. I started to look deeply and see WHO was in front of me. That changed everything...
I started to see the old people, who really had no more strength to work. Jesus said that the poor we would always have with us... these old people are that kind of poor!
I started to see kids... teens! They are everywhere in the city; the little ones making “hungry faces”, asking for a coin, wanting to “watch your car” or clean your windows with a dirty rag.
Soon they stopped being just random “kids” to me... they started being Abubacar, Cinaro, Sanito. Each one with their own smile, their own personality, their request, their history (full of lies, most of the time).
Abubacar was the one who moved my heart. He is about 9 or 10 and is very smart. He runs every time he sees my car. I let him watch my car a few times and every time I met him back there, quietly watching the car. He asked my name, where I lived and if he could come with me. I always turned the questions back to him. He said he didn’t have mom or dad… but I knew it wasn’t true.
Soon, more than just seeing, I started to care, really care. What would be his future? What will he become, just roaming through the streets like that? Probably a thug, like so many others that are already there. His perspectives weren’t promising... no study, no skill, no job, no money! Even as a thug, competition is pretty high in Nacala!
I started to look for him every time I went to town and took him wherever I went, to “watch my car”. Between one shop and the other I asked other questions and tried to find out more about this sweet funny kid!
Finally this year I decided to go a step further. But first, I counted the cost. So many of them need help… but even so, only a few make good use of the hand extended to help them change their lives. But if we don’t start with one, if we don’t believe in one… what difference will we make? I weighted and decided to move forward.
I set up a day with Abubacar to go to his house. By this time he had admitted he had a mom. I couldn’t go the day I had set and he spent a great deal of the morning waiting for me and thinking: “What’s wrong with this lady! She said she would come, but didn’t” Another day I looked for him everywhere but couldn’t find him!
Last Friday, I was going with Rito (one of the teachers) to see some schools he was interested in studying at... and I found Cinaro (another street kid). I visited his family and found out he has a dad, a mom and 4 siblings. His dad is a very uneducated man, very rough but with a good heart.
They live in complete poverty, as I described above...
On that same morning, I met Abubacar on the street again. He took me to see his house and we found out he is Cinaro’s neighbor! His mom complained that he doesn’t behave, is never helping at home and always runs to town to beg! Sometimes he brings a few coins but never much! He doesn’t shower. So I gave him a small loving lecture! :)
None of them go to school (Cinaro and two of his brothers that are old enough to study and Abubacar and his older brother). None of them have documents and none has ever step foot on a classroom… but the school is less than two minutes from their houses! We agreed to make their documents this week and put them in school next year! We set a date and place to meet!
When I arrived at the set place this morning Abubacar came in my direction: “I was looking for you… where is that lady?”, but with a huge grin in his face he shows me he is not a bit upset! I meet his mom who is also ready to go to the registry. The other family is a bit more complicated, but we gather everyone and there we go!
Nothing works at the registry BECAUSE NONE OF THE PARENTS HAVE DOCUMENTS EITHER!! What a weird situation! But it’s local reality! Now we are on a fight to get documents to the parents, so that the kids can have their documents and next year can go to school!
One thing really encouraged me today though. It was Abubacar’s mom encouraging Cinaro’s mother when someone told her that if they are enrolled to school they will run away from it, she said: “Since the day this lady went to my house, Abubacar has been showering every day and even combing his hair! It is possible for their hearts to be changed!”
I want to be guided by Your Spirit, Lord!
I want to see them as You see!
I want to follow in Jesus’ footsteps
And love them with Your love!
I want them to know that You love them,
I want to see their future transformed!
I know I have no power in myself,
But You are the One that can change the heart!
terça-feira, 25 de janeiro de 2011
David Wilkerson - A Call to Anguish
And I look at the whole religious scene today and all I see are inventions and ministries of man and fleh. It's mostly powerless, it has no impact on the world.
And I see more of the world coming into the church and impacting the church rather than the church impacting the world. I see music taking over the house of God, I see entertainment taking over the house of God. Obsess with entertainment in God's house, a hatred of correction and a hatred of reproof. Nobody wants to hear it anymore!
Whatever happened to anguish in the House of God?
Whatever happened to anguish in the ministry?
It's a word you don't hear in this pampered age.
You don't hear it.
Anguish means extreme pain and distress. The emotions so stirred that it becomes painful. Acute deeply felt inner pain because of conditions about you, in you, or around you.
Anguish!
Deep pain!
Deep sorrow!
Agony of God's heart!
We've held onto our religious rhetoric and our revival talk but we've become so passive.
All true passion is born out of anguish. All true passion for Christ comes out of a baptism of anguish.
You search the scripture and you'll find that when God determined to recover a ruined situation he would share his own anguish, for what God saw happening to his church and to his people.
And He would find a praying man and he would take that man and literally baptize him in anguish.
You find it in the book of Nehemiah. Jerusalem is in ruins.
How is God going to deal with this? How is God going to restore the ruin?
Nehemiah was not a preacher, he was a career man.
This was a praying man. And God found a man who would not just have a flash of emotion, not just some great sudden burst of concern and then let it die. He said "No. I broke down and I wept and I morned and I fasted. Then I began to pray night and day."
Why didn't these other men have an answer. Why didn't God use them in restoration? Why didn't they have a word? Because there was no sign of anguish! No weeping! Not a word of prayer!
It's all ruin!
Does it matter to you today?
Does it matter to you at all that God's spiritual Jerusalem, the church, is now married to the world?
That there is such a coldness sweeping the land?
Closer than that...
Does it matter about the Jerusalem that's in our own hearts? The sign of ruin that is slowly drainning spiritual power and passion.
Blind to lukewarmness, blind to the mixture that is creeping in. That's all the devil wants to do is get the fight out of you. And kill it! So you won't labor in prayer anymore. You won't weep before God anymore. You can sit and watch television and your family go to Hell.
Let me ask you... is what I just said convicted you at all?
There is a great difference between anguish and concern.
Concern is something that begins to interest you, you take an interest in a project or a cause or a concern or a need.
I want to tell you something I've learned over my years, of 50 years of preaching... If it is not born in anguish, if it had not been born of the Holy Spirit, where what you saw and heard of the ruin that drove you to your knees, took you down into a baptism of anguish where you began to pray and seek God, I know now, Oh my God, do I know it?! Until I am in agony, until I have been anguished over it, and all our projects, all our ministries, everything we do, Where are the Sunday School teachers that weep over kids they know are not hearing and going to hell?
You see, a true prayer life begins at the place of anguish.
You see, if you set your heart to pray, God's going to come and start sharing his heart with you.
Your heart begins to cry out - Oh God, your name is being blasphemed. Holy Spirit is being mocked. The enemy is out trying to destroy the testimony of the Lord's faithfulness and something has to be done.
There is going to be no renewal, no revival, no awakening, until we are willing to let him once again break us.
Folks, it's getting late, and it's getting serious.
Please don't tell me, don't tell me you're concerned... when you're spending hours in front of the internet or television.
Come on.
Lord, there are some need to get to this altar and confess. I am not what I was, I am not where I am supposed to be. God, I don't have your heart or your burden. I've wanted it easy. I just wanted to be happy.
But Lord, true joy comes out of anguish. There is nothing of the flesh that will give you joy.
I don't care how much money, I don't care what kind of new house, there is absolutely nothing physical that can give you joy. It's only what is accomplished by the Holy Spirit when you obey Him and take on His heart.
Build the walls around your family.
Build the walls around your own heart.
Make you strong and impregnable against the enemy.
God, that's what we desire.
quarta-feira, 19 de janeiro de 2011
From Rod and Ellie Hein, for 2011
May your joy be full,
May your cup (which is your spirit) overflow
Your body be rejuvenated with youth and strength
Your bones be healthy,
and your blood be energised
Your mind be renewed
Your soul restored
Your emotions brought into line with the Word of God
Your vision be recharged
Your spiritual sight clear and far
May you be filled with courage
and confidence in Christ Jesus
May you walk blameless and in obedience
....to the One Who has called and chosen you...
For His purpose
May you laugh and dance and rejoice exceedingly
And cry only when it is for a good purpose
May you pray
May you intercede
And weep for the nations....and harvest of souls
May you be that harvester....who brings in a great harvest
To lay at the feet of Him
Who gave Himself for us
And poured out His life that we may live
ABUNDANT LIFE!
sexta-feira, 31 de dezembro de 2010
Closure - 2010
Human beings need seasons. Seasons that mark beginnings and ends.
Moments to consider, moments to meditate and remember what has been and what is to come.
All that seems to be God-ordained.
Today I look back, as the last day of the year and consider what has gone, and what is to come. I look back and see what a tough year it has been, the hardships, the disappointments from beginning to the end.
Maybe my main lesson through it all has been: blessed is the man who put his trust in God and cursed is he who trusts men.
So with eyes fixed on Him, and on HIM ALONE, I go on, knowing He is faithful. In Him I can have FAITH, for He never changes!
Oh God, how I love you!
quinta-feira, 19 de agosto de 2010
Art, by Eliana Walker
Art is when your eyes are opened to behold the infinite. It happens during just a few seconds when that humanly invisible gate between this world and reality is unlocked and we`re able to grasp the true meaning of beauty. That`s where light comes from, where sounds are clearly heard and where feelings are fully understood. Once you`ve been there, life is not the same.
Colors look pale, musical notes are not enough, words become powerless, yet necessary and full of purpose.
Once you've been there, you are bestowed with a burden, a restless and increasingly tiresome voice, which is not decipherable until it is so overwhelming that it becomes unbearable to a point where you can't see, hear or feel anything but the voice itself.
Any true artist knows and sometimes admits that a particular expression of art -- whether it be good music, a beautiful painting, a lovely poem or even a warm smile, a tight hug or a tear drop -- doesn't really belong to him. He is just the means, the way between here and there, between that which seems to be and that which really is. And then, if he's really been faithful and successful in revealing what he touched in those fleeting moments of amazement and awe, then he'll offer a chance for everyone else to break free from the surrounding shadows of this world and see reality, gaze into its existence and hope that one day we'll no longer have shadows blinding our eyes. The gate will be forever open and we'll be able to call that reality!
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