Happy Thursday!
GO Outreach phase 1 night 3: the best session YET! Really, we came back to church HIGH… went home and watched the new Law and Order- STILL HIGH… went to sleep- JUST AS HIGH… DREAMT about so many people coming to the Lord that we could not FIT THEM ALL in our ministry… woke up remembering the DREAM and last nights DREAMY Outreach… and I’m still BUZZING 10 hours later!
Every Christian should experience the PLEASURE of GOING OUT like this!
Hey, we finally added a donate option… its at the top right side of this site. Right now, everything goes to Destiny Family Center, the epicenter for everything we do. All funds are spent at the discretion of our Board of Directors and all donations are 100% tax deductible. Giving to this ministry helps us with all local, national, and international ministry. For more information… click on the donate button. I gave the first donation yesterday… it was FUN! Hope you feel compelled! lol
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Todays Message: Inspiring Thoughts About Helping the Weak
Acts 20:34-36 You yourselves know that these hands of mine have supplied my own needs and the needs of my companions. In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work WE MUST HELP THE WEAK, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is MORE BLESSED TO GIVE than to receive.’ “ When he had said this, he knelt down with all of them and prayed.
The greater benefit in a giving/receiving exchange… it ALWAYS goes to the giver! This is what Paul was talking about in the above verses… that he PUT THE WORDS OF JESUS TO THE TEST… and he FOUND THEM TO BE TRUE!
Todays world is overrun with WEAK PEOPLE, BROKEN DOWN PEOPLE, DESPERATE PEOPLE, HELPLESS PEOPLE… REJECTED PEOPLE, LONELY PEOPLE… they are EVERYWHERE! It’s really hard to identify them, because most of us do a SUPER GOOD JOB at covering over our WEAKNESSES.
You can be certain… that TODAY, you and I will interact with someone weak… very weak… dangerously WEAK.
You may feel too weak yourself to even consider HELPING SOME OTHER WEAK PERSON. I believe this is when WE actually NEED to HELP THE WEAK… especially when we are weak ourselves!
Have you ever heard the following phrase before: “you cannot give out what you have not received.”
- While I partially agree with this thought… in the fact that we have to keep ourselves fresh and healthy- spirit, soul, and body… so that we will not run on empty so long that we BURN OUT.
- I also disagree with this thought… in the fact that the Bible promises, “A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.” -Proverbs 11:25
All day yesterday, I was choking under one of the fiercest work loads of my life. It was very difficult not to feel OVERWHELMED… very hard to stay on task when I wanted to break down and weep for a few hours on my office couch. I was WEAK and I needed HELP… lots and lots of HELP.
Then last nights GO Outreach came… and even though I had expectation of something great happening, I felt far too EMPTY to be “GOING OUT with a smile, a prayer, and an invitation!”
I felt as if I need somebody to COME TO ME with a BIG SMILE and a BIGGER PRAYER.
And by the time we came out of that last house… I WAS NO LONGER WEAK! I was refreshed because I refreshed others… our whole team was REFRESHED as we walked around loving the beautiful people of that neighborhood!
The breakthrough moment came when we knocked on that LAST DOOR. It was dark and we debated whether we should or shouldn’t… and thank God we did!
Turned out: the lady had just lost her good friend in a car accident hours before… her husband left her 7 years ago after 34 years of marriage… her fellow employee’s were shunning her at work because she turned someone in for stealing… her daughter was fighting severe alcoholism much due to the pain of her daddy walking out for another woman! This woman was ALL ALONE suffering under the devastation of loneliness and rejection!
As we prayed for her and hugged her… she told us she had needed that moment for seven years… tears streaming down her face for most of our visit! God worked through us to BLESS this beautiful woman!
Naturally, WE WERE REFRESHED BEYOND WORDS… and so will you… EVERY TIME you also HELP THE WEAK!
I hope todays blog adds tremendous value to your amazing lives! Love you all… just finished praying for you… hope you really feel the difference all day long!
I just starting following you on Twitter and you direct messaged me thanking me. Then i came over and found this article on helping the weak.
Approximately 50 refugees from Burma, Thailand and Iraq are now worshiping with us at our church. Eleven of them have already ASKED to be baptized. I teach English as a Second Language to 6-9 of them on Saturdays.
Today I had 9—top knotch 20 plus or minus year olds. They are precious. Have nothing…absolutely nothing but a desire to learn, have a life and make a living for their family. Today Po Rah and Me Meh (bro. and sister)were in my class…with flip flops on, no coat, freezing, as most of them were. But as chance would have it, I told the “driver” I would take them home myself. I called my husband who met me, and them, at Wal Mart so we could buy them shoes and a coat. Mom and Dad and 8 children live in their house. I’m sure Po Rah (18) supports them by working at the Pardue chicken factory here locally. He works there at night.
You have never seen such wonderful kids, striving to make it here not just to live……but for their life. They come to America because they have to leave their country or die. They come to the USA legally; one of the older men waited 30 years to get here. Can you imagine????
One woman has been in a refugee camp for 30 years. It took them 3 days to get here from Burma, flying. Anyway, as we were checking out a WalMart, buying shoes, socks and a coat for Me Meh and shoes, socks and a blanket for Po Reh, the man in front of us was probably a 30 year old man buying at least 20 match box cars. Some were duplicates.
How pitiful we are in the U.S. to be buying toys we don’t need while the starving are coming to our country, who don’t have shoes, hoping to have a better life. I have never been so convicted to have less in my life than I am right now. I am learning so much from them while they think that I’m their teacher. They are content, happy, grateful and so respectful of me. They call me “teacher” when they should call me their “student.”
My husband and I have been married 34 years. He is an attorney. Our best friends live in a million dollar house. She wonders why I’ve quit spending money. How can I continue to buy more shoes I don’t need when my students only have 1 pair of flip flops. Just what is wrong with this picture!
I really don’t know why I’m writing you tonight, except to tell you this article struck a chord with me especially today, because of what I just went through. Giving Po Rah and Me Meh shoes, socks, a blanket, blue jeans and a coat (plus some fried chicken to take home to their family to eat from Wal Mart) makes me so happy not because I can give them more, but because they are teaching me how to live on less.
That truly is the real story here. The fact that God brought them to our church is not about them, it’s about us. We are learning more from them than they ever will from us. God knew what he was doing when he set them right down in the middle of our “white-middle-class-affluent-church. Po Reh said to me today at the end of class right as we were leaving, “Teacher, next week can we learn more about public speaking?” I went over to him and said, “Public Speaking?” and he said, “Yes.” I couldn’t believe that’s what he wanted. I said, “Okay, Po Reh I’ll bring you a book and you can read it.” “Do you read books?” And he said, “Yes the world book.” I said, “The encyclopedia?” “Yes, the worldbook.”
Can you imagine being in the USA, not being able to speak the language, working at a chicken factory to support your 8 brothers and sister plus your mom and dad, and not having shoes to wear, reading the world book? I pray that, as you have said, we wake up, look at the people around us, see what they need and forget ourselves for awhile. They are so thirsty for what we have, yet they have something we need so badly. They are simple people, coming to the US for a better life. I just pray we give them what they need, truly need–the gospel, Jesus christ, our hearts, our lives, our undivided attention, instead of giving them our lack of contentment, our gluttonous appetites, our worldliness and our insatiable appetites for more and more, yet having less and less of what they already have. Po Reh asked if we could do more “public speaking” and he has already spoken volumes to me. We definitely are kindred spirits realizing there are hurting people out there who need so much, and we who have so much more than we need, should be more than willing to share.
God bless you in your ministry. Keep up the good work.
Teresa… thank you so much for sharing your story with us. Every time I come back from a third world country, I have the very same difficulty you speak of here. I pray that God uses you and your husband MORE and MORE… and that when you leave this earth, you will both KNOW that you LIVED FOR THE CAUSE! Very nice to meet you by the way! I hope this blog is a blessing to your journey OVER and OVER again! I’m gonna check out your blog… and pray for you AND these Burma refugees! Have a super day Teresa!
Wow Teresa….amazing. I had to laugh at the part the middle class affluent church…..aren’t so many? It actually makes me sick to my stomach. It is a burden of mine to see more diversity in local church buildings. It amazing how unaccepting people are of others.