Our Last Trip – The Kids at All Things New!

Just so you know, the kids are doing great!  They are looking more and more healthy each time we see them, and we love them more and more each time we go down!  They are so awesome, sweet, caring, and just incredible.  I wish everyone who was reading this could meet them.  There is a joy in these kids that is uncommon, and we are so ready to be there to take care of them, to help them when they are sick, to love them as our own, and to help figure out the future that GOD has ordained for them since the beginning of time.

This last time, some of the kids at the orphanage were sick (especially some of the older kids), and it was really difficult to see.  You see, on this trip, both Jessica and I got sick, and we realized something…It is miserable to be sick when there is no air conditioning, or television, or comfortable bed/sofa to lay on.  And every time these kids have gotten sick they have not had that.  I was sick for pretty much the second week of our trip this last time, and it was miserable.  But then I came home to a primary care doctor, an awesome bed in an awesome house with an awesome air conditioner and easily filled prescriptions to make me feel better.  Our kids lay in the heat on a piece of plywood with a thin mattress, no easy-to-get-to medicine, no easily visited doctor’s office, and nothing to do except lay down and wait for the sickness to pass.

Here is the thing, we cannot wait to be there for these children, our children.  It was so different seeing them sick this time, it was almost heartbreaking.  And then we think of the children all throughout Haiti and all throughout the world who go through this constantly.  The simplest sickness can be a battle of life or death, and there is nothing they can do about it.

I want this thought to change my prayer life.  To change how I think about ministry to people around the world.  Jessica read a magazine article the other day that used the phrase “That’s just a first world problem.”  Meaning the things we think of as problems are rarely true problems.  Like getting upset when a person gets our order wrong at a fast food restaurant (this is a pet peeve of mine), or when our air conditioner goes out, or when we have to take our car into the shop to get it fixed.  I want GOD to change my perspective and give me a desire to pray for men, women, and children around the world who have nothing.  Who have never heard the Gospel, never had a Mom or a Dad take care of them, never eaten 3 meals per day, and have little hope to do anything else but survive in this world.  GOD, give me the desire to do whatever I can to take your Gospel, and Your love to the ends of the earth!  However this looks, give me the ability to look past myself and to the people in this world who need You, because You have chosen me to be Your body in this world.

Isn’t that an awesome responsibility and honor.  That we are called by GOD to be His love to the world!

We love our kids so much, and we know that this is the ministry that GOD has called us to.  To take His love and His Gospel to these kids and to the nation of Haiti.  Ask GOD where He is calling you, ask Him how you can be His body and His love to this world!