I had the TV on in the background while working and dealing with Lincoln. Anthony Bourdain's no reservations came on and it was in Port Au Prince Haiti. It piqued my interested since I had been there in November 2010. I had ties to Haiti before that. My dear friends the Mattenley's had lived there and adopted two girls, we also had connections to Haitian Christian Mission there and had met it's founder Etienne Proffet before. My sister and some very close friends were in Haiti when the earthquake struck. Many miraculous things happened on that trip. Maybe I'll write about them at another time.
Anyway, as the show continued I realized he was filming when we were down there. Hurricane Tomas was set to hit the country while we were down there and he was filming about that too. It brought back some many memories. I remember being overcome with emotion as we flew in. Just seeing the devastation and living standards for hundreds of thousands of people made me cry. Tears are still brought to my eyes thinking about it.
There is so much wrong there and so much potential but it is not an easy fix. Even on the show one of the most common problems there was displayed. Anthony was at a little restaurant and there were many hungry kids just watching him eat. He and his crew decided to buy them all lunch. It was the least they could do. It soon became a mob. Hundreds came for free food, men pushed their way to the front of the line, fights broke out; it was chaos.
We experienced the same thing when we were down there. We drew a crowd where ever we went. Some just were happy to have someone there to listen to their story and it was amazing to hear what they had been through. But as we were talking more and more people gathered. It was overwhelming. They'd start tugging on you, people begging for money or the shirt off your back. It is so hard when you have so much but you could give your entire self and it wouldn't be enough.
There has to be a huge change in the culture and government.
We, while intentions are good, are just enabling the problem when we throw money at it. It's such a heartbreaking thing and overwhelming. There is good happening there and there is so much potential. There needs to be a generation that stands up and decides to change their country.
I am happy to know and support some groups down there doing amazing things. Haitian Christian Missions is one and our friends the Mattenley's are another. You can read about their work at mattenley.com orhttp://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=4332546856632522435#allposts
I've wanted to start a blog for a while. A place to share my thoughts and experiences as I journey through life. I'm not a great writer. I tend to share too much at times or have verbal diarrhea which leads to extensive editing. So what once was an offering comparable to an amazing, freshly baked loaf of bread is now the ancient, stale crust that is not appealing at all. But here it goes, it'll be interesting to see where it takes me. I'm not expecting any rhyme or reason to my blog, it may be reflecting on something currently happening or maybe a way to record past memories or experiences.
Lincoln is taking a rare morning nap so I sat down with a cup of coffee this morning and started doing some Bible study. The communion mediation yesterday at church was excellent. It started with 1 John 3:1 Behold what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God;
and such we are.
As I read the rest of the chapter it was amazing how well it tied into what our pastor spoke about yesterday in his sermon. He was talking about speaking and living in truth and love, which can be changed to legalism and liberalism to a crippling point. What are we going to chose to do, live to please man or live to bring glory to God? Can we do both? How do we keep that balance? One one hand we know we can't earn our way to heaven, salvation is a free gift. So that's it, we just accept and don't need to do anything else. We are saved, God can't love us anymore than He does now, so why do I need to change anything?
On the other hand, yes, we can't earn our way to heaven but we can use this life to reflect Christ and the Holy Spirit living in us. We can start to beat ourselves up as we try to live holy live and fail. As our pastor says Satan steps in an rains down condemnation on us instead of conviction which is of the Holy Spirit.
Where is the balance, where do truth, mercy grace and love meet? In 1 John 3 it talks about our sin nature and how as we live in and belong to Christ our life will reflect that. If there isn't change we belong to the devil and continue to sin. The end of the chapter sums it up best
John 3
18 Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions.19 Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God.
20 Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.21 Dear friends, if we don’t feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence.
22 And we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him.23 And
this is his commandment: We must believe in the name of his Son, Jesus
Christ, and love one another, just as he commanded us.
24 Those
who obey God’s commandments remain in fellowship with him, and he with
them. And we know he lives in us because the Spirit he gave us lives in
us.
Good words to meditate on and work on living out this week. This post is much longer than I initially intended. My quiet time lead me on number of other searches as well this morning, but I will share that at another time.
