Back From Haiti.

Mark 1:14-17; 41-42
14 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15 "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"
16 As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. 17 "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." 18At once they left their nets and followed him.
41 Filled with compassion, Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" 42 Immediately the leprosy left him and he was cured.


Hey blog reader, I hope you had a fabulous week. I returned Friday night from Haiti. It was a great experience of course and I was with an amazing team of eight people, six from our church and two from the HOLD the Children child sponsorship program (HOLD is a branch of Mission Discovery). God taught me a lot this past week. (You should hear more about these stories in the posts to come). Just before we were planning to leave we were skeptical because a tropical storm was supposed to hit Haiti and we didn't want to be in harm's way. We felt God calling us to go though and we went seeing that it appeared to be getting weaker the morning we left. When we finally got over there last Monday night, we checked the storm and saw that the storm had dissipated. It went poof! Obviously, God had good intentions of us going. In fact, we only got a few sprinkles the first and the last day.

This passage was mentioned the day before we went. Mission Discovery considers it their two hands ministry. You can see from the scriptures, one hand says come, be a follower of Christ. The other hand says to be filled with compassion as Jesus is.

I was thinking about this all week. I made it my goal to show others that I'm a follower of Christ and to show compassion to those who I ran into in Haiti.

Jesus could have done a lot of things instead of heal the man. He could have just healed him without the compassion. However, being who he was, Jesus showed compassion and healed the man. He touched the man, showing that he cared about him, and shouted "I am willing." He stepped forward and then healed the leper. He didn't stay in the back and heal him. That's the key. Jesus thought the man needed more - and again that's compassion.

Similarly in Haiti, we could have stood back and just give gifts to the kids. Instead, we got to know the kids, stepped up to the kids, and gave them a gift showing compassion just as Jesus would.

These kids deserve a lot of compassion. They belong to the same loving God as we do.

The song "If You Say Go" by Vineyard is all about listening to God's call. Have a listen.



P.S. As of last week I've officially been writing this blog for a year now. Thank you God!
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