Me

I am not a big fan of Me pages. 

At least not Me pages that are actually about me.  I don’t know about you, but I kind of get bored talking about myself.  After all, I spend all day with me.  

Bottom line, God’s shown such mercy to me and I am praying like crazy He will help become a person who shows His mercy to others.  

That’s why my family and I moved to Africa. 

We want to serve the church, that’s for sure. I am a preacher so I want to preach the Word. We want to train men. We want to disciple. We want to develop deep biblical friendships with other people in the local church. And we want to help the needy.  

We have a desperate kind of desire to be involved in serving those in need.

Now, I don’t want to unload a sermon on you to explain why, but I’ll give you the bullet points why we are so passionate about this and why we are one hundred percent convinced that God wants His people to make great sacrifices to help the helpless.

God’s attitude towards orphans and widows is revealed in the commands He gave to Israel in the Old Testament. Check out Deuteronomy 24. One of the marks of a godly person, according to the Old Testament is that he cares for the orphan. If you look back at the book of Job that’s actually one of the ways he defended his character. Lack of concern for the orphan is given as a mark of wickedness. In Isaiah 1, Isaiah cries out against the wickedness of the people of Israel. God tells them He hates their religious activity. He says in verse 16 , “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from My sight, cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice…” and what will that look like? “reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan…” A quick survey of the New Testament reveals as someone has written, a “startling level of commitment to ministries of compassion. Tabitha was a godly woman whose chief occupation was helping the poor. (Acts 9:36-41) Barnabas was a man of some means who made an indelible mark on the early Christian communities, first by supplying the needs of the poor out of his own coffers (Acts 4:36-37) and later by spearheading efforts and taking up collections for famine stricken Judeans. (Acts 11:27-30) Titus was the young disciple of Paul who organized a collection for poor Christians in Jerusalem. (2 Cor.8:3-6) Later he superintended further relief efforts in Corinth (2 Cor.8:16-17) When we last see Titus, he has taken over the monumental task of mobilizing the Cretan church for similar good works. Paul was a man himself deeply committed to remembering the poor. (Gal.2:7-10) His widespread ministry began with a poverty outreach (Acts 11:27-30) and he went to great lengths to network the churches of Greece and Macedonia for relief purposes. (2 Cor.8-9) In the end he willingly risked his life for this mission of compassion. (Acts 20:17-35) The Good Samaritan is the unnamed lead character in one of Christ’s best love parables. When all others including supposed men of righteousness had skirted the responsibility of charity the Samaritan took up its mantle. Christ concluded the narrative saying, ‘Go and do likewise.’ (Luke 10:37) These early Christian heros fully comprehended that religion that our God and Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows and distress…They knew that true repentance evidenced itself in sharing food and sustenance…” with the hungry. Bottom line, mercy is a test. It is a test of the reality of our religion. Pure and undefiled religion is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress. As Timothy Keller explains, “…the poor and needy are a test. Our response to them tests the genuineness of our faith toward God. No passage is clearer at this point than Matthew 25:31-46. This describes Jesus’ examination of mankind on Judgment Day. He distinguishes those who have true faith from those who do not by examining their fruit, namely their concern for the poor, homeless and sick prisoners. How can this be? Jesus, when he says, “Whatever you did for the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me,” is merely expanding on Proverbs 19:17…He is also agreeing with James, John and Isaiah in saying that a sensitive social conscience and a life poured out in deeds of mercy to the needy is the inevitable outcome and sign of true faith. By such deeds God can judge true love from lip service.”

With something like 10 million orphans in Africa and verses like those, my wife, my children and I, we’ve been longing to get involved. We see this as an awesome opportunity for the church to bring great glory to God through sacrificial service. Some say that by 2010,10% of the population of South Africa will be orphans. If you move into a culture that is far from God and you were just dreaming about ways that you could impact that culture – could you possibly think of a more strategic way to make an impact than to help place needy children in solid Christian families?

We obviously can’t do it all by ourselves, but we would like to play a part.  

We have taken several orphans into our own home and when we have the opportunity and can do it in a God-honoring way, we would like to help more. God’s also just absolutely blessed with an opportunity to minister to refugees here in Pretoria.  

In fact we are looking to launch a church plant right in the heart of downtown Pretoria which we hope will become a living demonstration of God’s ability to bring people of all sorts of different cultures together through the gospel and also become a church planting/strengthening center and a base for mercy ministry.

I could talk about that all day long.

We have the opportunity to teach houseparents at a local orphanage as well, and train men and women from all over Africa in discipleship and counseling in a program called Grace School of Ministry.  

The potential really is as great as God gives us the ability, the wisdom and the strength.

Things have changed since we came to Africa.  We came with one set of expectations, God had another plan.  But we figure we’ll just keep trying to die to self and wait and see what He accomplishes through us.  It’s got to be Him because we certainly can’t do it.  

Honestly, I could go on and on. I look back over this note and there’s so much more I’d like to say. Typical preacher, I guess. But can I just close by asking you if you’d be willing to pray for us. This is a great big thing and we are small weak people. We’re just very glad to serve a great big God. We need His help.

I think of how the writers of Scripture, men like Paul, wrote to the church, pleading with them “Pray for me.” He believed that the church had a vital role in his ministry – that he needed them to pray. And so do we. We also need your financial support. We need all the ministry partners we can get and there are no small prayers or acts of service or gifts – it is all eternally significant!

If you are interested in more info, you can just give us a shout or check out 1hope4africa 

We are sent out by:

Grace Ministries International

A ministry of Grace Community Church 13248 Roscoe Blvd. Sun Valley, Ca. 913522 (818) 909-5700

www.gracechurch.org