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| It is always sad when a man of God is taken from this world. But, the good news is he gets to finally be with his Saviour. Go rest high on that mountain jerry. Thanks for your Kingdom work. Your brother Jesse Ps. Please, before the comments come, this post isn't saying Jerry Falwell was perfect. Only Christ himself is perfect, remember that. Jerry Falwell once said, "My heart was burning to serve Christ...I knew nothing would ever be the same again." Like I said, be with your Saviour, Jerry. | | |
| I wanted to write about the most important thing that has happened in Calcutta for me. That thing being my realization of why I am actually here.
I thought I was coming to to help girls caught in the sex trade. I thought maybe I was coming to preach the Gospel. Help some people maybe. Sure, I'll do some of that stuff, and maybe even see some fruits of it....but that is not WHY i'm here.
The reason I am here is because I lost my first love. I forgot who Jesus was. I was flat out messed up. I was lukewarm. Weak and soft. Poor, miserable, blind, wretched, and naked. Immature. I talked the talk for so long...I even did the works. Probably more works than most christians. But so what, I was completely missing it. I was praying less than I ever prayed. I had virtually no relationship with my God. Full of sin and evil, just waiting for the consequnces of it to fall. I completely missed it. And I am in this far away place to regain it. And that is the reason I am here.
When I realized how long gone I was going to be. How much I missed my family, friends, fiance, etc. When I became as depressed as I became.....I knew I actually needed Jesus for the first time in a long time. And when you come to that realization......and for the life of you FORGET how to grab Him. Wow. That's a bad state to be in! And that's where I was, needing Jesus....but forgetting how. It was that moment I realized the reason I was here. It was to return to my Saviour.
That has been VERY difficult. Very hard thing to realize/admit and very hard thing to cope with. Evil has been flushing from my system, and being replaced by Christ. Again, this purging and refilling is very hard....and it is just the beginning.
It's a shame I had to come all the way to Kolkata to get to this state, but it is exactly where I need to be. I have started communion again with Christ.....but just in baby steps. This process will deliberately be taken slow. It is the best thing that could have possibly happened though.
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| Thus far India has been very difficult on me. I am very very very homesick. I am also very ill. So physicaly and mentally it's been very straining. My spirit is also in very unkown waters right now. As soon as I landed in Kolkata (Calcutta) and walked out of the airport there was no question I was in a new world. The poverty here is astounding. I have spent some time in Mexico City and that didn't even begin to prepare me for what I would see here.
The poverty smacks you accross the face and I don't think I'll ever get used to it. I know you hear it all the time, "Americans don't know how good they got it"....but we really really don't. I've been in a constant state of struggle as I look at what is around me.
A few nights ago I was ready to throw the towel in. I think that is mostly because we hadn't started anything yet. We were still kind of settling in and so all I had was time to think about how much I miss home and how chaotic the conditions are here.
But then we started actually doing stuff a few days ago, and it has really lifted my spirits. We aren't working in the brothels with the sex trade girls yet. They said that is so intense that we need a couple months here before we do that. And in that time we are taking Bengali classes. Bengali is the language of this area. So what we have been doing is serving the poor. Mother Teresa had done amazing things in this area in her lifetime. The Indian people absolutely adore her. She started a number of compunds called "homes" throughout the city that are used to help the helpless. Her first "home" was a place to bring people who were dying. She couldn't stand seeing them just die on the street, so she started a house where they could die with dignity. Since that first one she has started many others. Homes for the extremely handicapped. Mentally ill. Long term sufferers. Addicts. On and on and on. So we have been working at one of the homes.
I get there in the morning and wash the clothes of the patients. Then when I finish that I wash the compound. After that I go around and massage the patients. They are foul, puss filled, bloody, etc., etc....but....Mother Teresa once said that when she washed the feet of the poor she couldn't help but imagine she was washing they very feet of Jesus. I am no mother teresa, but I do get a taste of what an honor it is to serve the poor. I also get to joke with them. I say my jokes in english, and they don't understand a word, but they still laugh :)
It is really neat going to these "houses" and doing this because you meet a lot of foreigners. There are MANY foreigners who come from all over the world (mostly Japan and South Korea) to serve here. So it's neat because when you feel like an outcast you can go to a "mother teresa house" or Sudder Street (where all the foreigners stay) and feel like less of an outsider. :)
The india people are VERY friendly. I am surprised at how sweet and friendly they are. Showers and bathrooms are difficult. No hot water. No overhead shower. So yea....get a bucket of cold water, and get to washing. So far I have been lucky to know where some toilets are, but mostly they are "squatty's". And yes, toilet paper is a rarity, welcome to the "left hand is dirty" culture.
I have not received any anti-american sentiment at all. As a matter of fact, kinda the opposite. But again, the indian people are VERY nice. I am staying with a family who are soooo nice. The mother loves Cricket, so she is going to take me to the park and teach me how to play. I am excited about that.
I have so much more, but my time in this internet cafe is short. If you want to keep something in your thoughts and prayers....it would be that I would beat my physicaly illnesses. And beat my extreme homesick feelings. But I don't want my spirit to return to what it was before I left. I like that it is strained and in unknown waters. As uncomfortable as that has been.
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| I thought this was a GREAT post by Patte Smith (if you read any of my posts, read this one). Patte is a long time ministry partner:
Sitting through Mel Gibson's latest film Apocalypto is not easy. It's unrelentingly brutal. While I cannot in good conscience recommend the movie outright, Apocalypto hit me in a profoundly personal way. As I watched scene after scene of frenzied human sacrifice I had a sickening sense of deja vu. I had seen it all before. I felt as if I was staring America in the face.
I have watched mothers and fathers and their family members and companions carry their infants to sacrifice. They carry snacks and pillows and books and pajamas. They laugh. They smoke. They eat. They sing. They sit on each others laps. They make-out.
I have even seen young mothers dance as they waited for their name to be called. They say they feel empowered by the murder of innocents. I have also seen people from the National Organization for Women joking and playing music and gyrating as they led the pregnant women in for the slaughter of their babies. For many of the women I meet this is the second or third child they have dismembered alive. Some of the women are pregnant with twins. One mother sacrificed 19 of her sons and daughters. Quite a few of the babies survive the sacrifice, only to be drowned or suffocated or left to perish by the executioners. You see, I have been reaching out to women and men who are killing their infants by abortion in Orlando for 14 years.
Peter Kreeft wrote a book about the murder of children by abortion in America. He writes:
"About 500 years ago, a strikingly similar culture of death reigned in Aztec Mexico. Some historians estimate that one out of every three children . . . were ritually sacrificed to their bloodthirsty and demanding god. . . exactly the same proportion of children conceived in America who are aborted today."
William Tsamis observes the similarities between the culture of death that is so graphically depicted in Apocalypto:
"Ironically, though, despite the rivers of blood that would flow from their sacrificial temples, the Aztecs regarded themselves as a gentle, environmentally conscious people, much like contemporary Western man.... we also engage in the systematic mutilation and destruction of developing human life. We develop gross, barbaric procedures such as the D & X abortion procedure (Partial-Birth Abortion) and we have no reservations regarding the wholesale slaughter of innocent human life."
The fact that Americans and the American church has not only tolerated the shedding of the blood of infants,
but have grown accustomed to the barbaric and ritual slaughter of human sacrifice in the shadow of a thousand steeples should give us pause. Who is it that is the murderer from the beginning? It is an ambush.
The poster for Apocalypto has these words:
When the end comes, not everyone is ready to go.
God has been patient.
He watched our nation institute human sacrifice.
Jesus sees over 1 million infant boys and girls murdered annually.
On January 22, 2007 it will be 34 years of state sanctioned human sacrifice in America.
We must look to ourselves when we view Gibson's film.
It is all so eerily familiar.
The culture of death that is so graphically depicted ...is Orlando.
It is America.
Apocalypto Now.
Patte Smith
Sanctuary Ministries
www.sanctuaryministries.blogspot.com
http://www.thegreatnewsorlando.com/ | | |
| Often my postings are question/point based, instead of a rant at something I am frustrated at. But I think this will be a rant post. Reference the two artciles belows
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112800602.html http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/us/28pastor.html?ex=1322370000&en=b97337ec874aa12e&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss The gist of it, simply put, is this. Joel Hunter, mega-church guru in Florida with $15 million dollar budget (we can discuss 15 million dollar budgets on another blog) was chosen to head Christian Coalition. To make a long story short, he wanted to broaden the efforts of Christian Coalition to go outside of abortion and same-sex marriage. Christian Coalition said no thanks, and Joel Hunter resigned. Now, before I explain my frustration, please don't think I'm frustrated with Joel Hartman's actions. There is nothing wrong with a guy coming into a ministry, saying, "hey, I'd like to broaden things", and the ministry saying "no thanks", and then that person and the ministry in brotherly love, deciding it best not to work together. That was actually handled well. Where my frustration comes is with the sort of verbal jabs Christian Coalition is getting for deciding not to broaden their ministry. Some things i have heard being said: "Well, they just wanna focus on two issues. That's silly" "Well, if you wanna be Jesus, you don't just focus on two issues" "My position is, unless we are caring as much for the vulnerable outside the womb as inside the womb, we're not carrying out the full message of Jesus," etc., etc. etc.
ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Every single one of the statements above drives me nuts! There is nothing wrong with a ministry focusing on one or two issues!!! What in the world! That would be like someone going up to someone who spends their lives trying to rescue girls out of the sex trade and saying to them, "you know, you really should put some focus into helping the lepers too, oh, and also, spend a chunk of your day in the slums with the orphans, oh..., and also go to the hospital and help the injured. Oh, and if you don't do these other things, than you aren't carrying out the full message of jesus'" GIVE ME A BREAK!! That is how the body of Christ works! Different people have different Kingdom tasks that the King himself gave them! Not only do I not think it is wrong for a ministry to stay focused on their task, I think it is downright important! That doesn't mean they dont' care about other issues. That doesn't mean they are refusing to "be jesus". That doesn't mean the issues they are focusing on are small and insignificant! It just means they are walking out the task that God gave them, or at least the task they thought God has given them! I mean, forget same-sex marriage and just look at abortion. That is a HUGE task to battle. We have forgotten, we as in Christians, have LOST SIGHT of how utterly horrific of an atrocity it is that each year millions of children are being grabbed with metal tools and having their arms and legs ripped off only to have the ordeal concluded with having their skulls crushed between forcpes. An enormous undertaking it is to battle this. And Christian Coaltion gets prodded by "relevant" christians because they focus on that one issue and are reluctant to expand? Well, trust me, there is plenty more work to be done on that one issue. What has the body come to when it ridicules other parts of the body for focusing on their assigned task?? Again, I have no problem with Joel Hartman suggesting a change in course and ultimately resigning. And I imagine Christian Coaltion said hey, "if you really want to start a ministry that is more broad...man...GO FOR IT! And we bless and God bless you. And we pray your efforts are fruitful" But there is ALSO NOTHING wrong with a ministry staying focused on their calling. Why does Christian Coalition get beat up for it?? I, for one, am glad Christian Coalition is staying focused on their task. And if they do decide to broaden, i pray they do it wisely and don't become 100 miles wide and one inch deep. Man..I usually don't get so wound up about such things. But ....this is a real problem in my mind. | | |
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