around the world with Jesus

There’s a hunger crisis happening in the world. While this isn’t new, it seems like hunger issues are getting more severe while technology and communication of the problem increases.

While I’ve never worked with them, I love seeing groups like the people who work with this miracle food, Plumpynut.

Check this out…http://www.theywilldie.org/.  It’s a combination of locally grown peanut butter mixed with powdered milk and a vitamin pack.  Their website says a 3-week supply can literally save the life of a child.  Thinking not only with the head, but with the heart is such a good thing. 

We at Convoy of Hope have communictated with the PlumpyNut people, and who knows what partnerships could be ahead.

There are solutions still to be found, and I hope some of our interns find some of those solutions.

Here’s a good place to mention the moringa tree. Many of our interns, and Convoy of Hope family members have worked with this miracle tree. This site describes them well, http://tinyurl.com/3gcjs3.  Maybe I’ll talk more about them another time.

There are still millions of people who’ve never heard that Jesus is the Son of God…some have never even heard his name. 

The story of Jesus, and what He means is powerful…and it doesn’t begin in the New Testament.  In the Wednesday night Bible Study at my church, I recently shared this story of EE-TAOW, which means, “It’s True!”  The story is about some indigenous people in Papua New Guinea, near where I spent 3 months back in ‘03.  In fact, here’s a man I met on the trip…

Here’s a clip from EE-TAOW from the web…and it can be ordered on line.  Good stuff…

Here are some boys I met on the same island where the video was filmed…

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Matt and April

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In the mid-late 90’s, I shared with the Park Crest college group from Philip Yancey’s book, “The Jesus I Never Knew.” Great book. I’ll confess I’d forgotten his thoughts on the ascension. I revisited the book and his thoughts a few months ago, and have pondered them since. Without getting too theological, or footnoted, etc. here are my conclusions. These are simple thoughts, but a new perspective for me.

If Jesus were here today, there would be two really big things happening:

1. People would do everything they could to get near him to ask Him to help them, heal them, pray for them, etc. It would be like this, but 1000 times over. He would help the poor.

2. People who loved Jesus would be clamoring to find ways to serve Him…can I get you some tea? Can I wash your feet? Here, have the comfortable seat, etc. It would be like Mary and Martha but 1000 times over. People would serve Him.

Jesus isn’t here (at least physically). He ascended. He’s not back yet. But…

1. People still need help. Since He’s gone, we can be stand in for Him and do our best to help those in need. As Audio Adrenaline sang a long time ago, we can be “His hands, His feet.” We can help the poor.

2. We can serve Him as we would if He were present in the “Can I get you some tea or wash your feet” sense. We do so when we serve others. In fact, that’s the point of much of Matthew 25, which says, “When you do this unto the least of these, you do this unto me”. We can serve Him.

Anyways…as you can see, #1 and #2 happen simultaneously when we serve others in His name.

These are some of the thoughts I’ve been pondering since mid-December. Our interns leave for Haiti on Monday to do just that. I’ll join them in the Caribbean soon. My friend Travis just left for Honduras to do just that, you can read more here.

I’ve wanted to memorize and pray for all the countries of the world for about 5 years. I figured since I’ve actually started, that blogging about it may help provide added accountability.

I heard a speaker at Book of Hope quite some time ago. His name is Dick Eastman and he’s with a ministry called Every Home for Christ. http://www.ehc.org/

If I remember correctly, he spoke of praying for every country in the world every day on his way to work, or wherever he was going that day. I love that idea. Of course, it’s a listing thing where he would simply fly through a list. However, with his decent knowlege of the world a passion for those people, and a greater love for God, I bet some cool things happen in response to those prayers.

The prayer…

• helps keep his passion alive and growing.
• reminds him to pray for the places he’s been and the people he’s met
• helps him be more aware when he hears of places on the news or in conversation
• connects him with the desire God has to receive worship from the nations
• is heard by our Savior, who responds

He passed out prayer maps that day. I have mine with me most of the time, wanting to actually start the memorization process. The idea is to pray for a few countries a day each day for a month, but I like the idea of just learning them all. I’ve told other intern teams of my desire to learn them all. Haven’t done it. Will do so starting now, or last week actually.

Click here to see the list.

I’ve gotten Africa, but am a bit worried about all of those Oceanic islands. Wish me luck…or even order the map (it’s free). Accountability in cyberspace has arrived.

Our Convoy of Hope interns and I talked Monday of two great tragedies…

Tragedy #1. There are people today who haven’t decided to follow Jesus. Maybe they’ve never heard, or maybe they’ve rejected. Either way, this means they don’t have the comfort/strength/guidance/etc. from the Holy Spirit. They don’t have the “full life” that John 10:10 promises. And then a future without Jesus after their death is quite a tragedy too. All tragic.

Tragedy #2. God created man to worship Him. He sent His Son to die for us. His Son (that’s Jesus) sure worked hard and sacrificed for us. God is love, you know. He “dwells in the praises of His people.” Many people around the world don’t know about Him so they’re not worshipping Him. Many who do know about Him have chosen not to worship Him. He’s wanting praises, our attention, our love, and our lives and not receiving them. Tragic.

John Piper is a pastor/author who’s written about this. http://tinyurl.com/ilikepiper includes a 14 point sermon that touches on the topic…good stuff.

So from your perspective, which is the worse tragedy? Which is a stronger driving force? Their bleak future here and after life outside of Jesus, or a deserving Jesus not receiving their praises today?

Convoy of Hope was shut down last week…but I was at the World Missions Summit 2. I wouldn’t have traded the experience for anything. It was incredible. I twittered, “it smells like missions here”. It did. Not sure what that meant, but it was a very cool week.

But I don’t think I slept much. A little…but not much. Five guys in a room with two double beds wasn’t too comfortable. I did bring an air mattress, but…

I’ve mentioned to teams that God is pretty smart. On his top 10 list, He included the obvious…don’t kill, don’t commit adultery, don’t take My Name in vain. Most people who want to follow Christ do pretty well in most of those areas. But He included another…Honor the Sabbath.

I won’t do a long exegesis on this commandment, but I will say that He wants us to take some down time every now and then. I’m not always good at that. Honestly, I can be very good at it sometimes though. I have been the last day or two. I think resting can honor God. I like Hebrews 6 that speaks of entering “that rest.” Here…I think it means more than just physical rest. It alludes to the kind of rest that we can have in our minds and hearts when we know we’re living right. That’s a pretty cool rest…

So…the idea of just being and not necessarily doing is a pretty holy thing. It brings honor to God. We were in church this morning, but I’ve been vegging for about 3 hours. It’s felt great.

Taking a sabbath…so important He wrote it in stone. Busy doesn’t equal holy. I’m going to post this and shut down the computer and get some more rest…

A recent movie included the line, “I love technology…” and I do.

I learned some things this week.

Seven days ago I was in Phoenix at the Master’s Commission Conference, I then went to Dallas (Waxahachie) to spend time with students at Southwestern Assemblies of God University. Yesterday I was in chapel at Evangel. Busy week.

I’ve spent a lot of time with college (age) students lately. Here are a few things I learned…

1. I’ve heard it said that “this generation is overpreached and underchallenged.” I think today it’s more like “Challenged but underfacilitated.” Yesterday a student told me, “I’ve wanted to do something like a Convoy of Hope Internship for a long time but didn’t know how.”

2. Still…some are bored with the thought of missons. They like the concept and agree it’s a good and necessary thing, but aren’t sure how it applies to them if they’re not “called.” I guess perhaps that’s not necessarily news, but I saw it this week. How should the “normal” person who doesn’t preach or feel led to fill a passport connect with missions?

3. There is passion when there is buy in. I saw some people near me in Phoenix who are passionate about Guitar Hero. They don’t worship it, but they sure like it and spent a lot of time passionately playing. They’re a part of something cool. I don’t want to create a missions video game or anything, but it got me thinking…

4. Chili’s has good Fish Tacos. I enjoyed them with some very cool students from SAGU.

It was also fun seeing a friend who works hard. I worked with Pastor Ornan in the Dominican Republic…in a pretty tough place. He was in Phoenix last week and told me how much Convoy of Hope helped his church last March when I was there, and broke the news that he’ll be building a new church soon…cool.