Hello  ,

Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision, reflected on his visit to a church in Port-au-Prince, Haiti nearly a year after the devastating earthquake. The church's building consisted of a tent made from white tarps and duct tape, pitched in the midst of a sprawling camp for thousands of people still homeless from the earthquake. This is how he describes the church and the lesson he learned in Haiti:

In the front row sat six amputees ranging in age from 6 to 60. They were clapping and smiling as they sang song after song and lifted their prayers to God. The worship was full of hope ... [and] with thanksgiving to the Lord.

No one was singing louder or praying more fervently than Demosi Louphine, a 32-year-old unemployed single mother of two. During the earthquake, a collapsed building crushed her right arm and left leg. After four days both limbs had to be amputated.

She was leading the choir, leading prayers, standing on her prosthesis and lifting her one hand high in praise to God .... Following the service, I met Demosi's two daughters, ages eight and ten. The three of them now live in a tent five feet tall and perhaps eight feet wide. Despite losing her job, her home, and two limbs, she is deeply grateful because God spared her life on January 12th last year ... "He brought me back like Lazarus, giving me the gift of life," says Demosi ... [who] believes she survived the devastating quake for two reasons: to raise her girls and to serve her Lord for a few more years.

It makes no sense to me as an "entitled American" who grouses at the smallest inconveniences-a clogged drain or a slow wi-fi connection in my home. Yet here in this place, many people who had lost everything ... expressed nothing but praise.

I find my own sense of charity for people like Demosi inadequate. They have so much more to offer me than I to them. I feel pity and sadness for them, but it is they who might better pity me for the shallowness of my own walk with Christ.*

A few ideas became glaringly obvious to me as I read the above account:

1. I often think that I have great struggles that are perhaps not as dark and foreboding as I give them credit for.   If I would choose to focus on the goodness of God in every moment, I can be joyful in most circumstances.

2. The people that I minister to (no matter who they are), are often more of a blessing to me than perhaps I am to them.  God exhorts to serve one another, not only because it's the right thing to do; but because there is a huge blessing for us in it.

Our God knows what He is doing, and those that truly serve Him understand that everything begins and ends with Him.

Have a great day and God bless!

Pastor Mike / The Open Word 

​