just a few points why i'm passionate about it...

This stuff resonates in me as my truth as why I’m so excited and passionate about this stuff. Some Bible verses I really like that apply to my trip, and quotes from a book I just read (that my awesome neighbors in Fort Collins gave me, which ended up being so impactful).

James 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion is taking care of orphans and windows in distress and keeping oneself unpolluted by the world.

“We can do no great things, only small things with great love.” Mother Theresa

“…All men live, not by reason of any care they have for themselves but by the love for them that is in other people…it’s by love for others that they really live.” –Tuesdays With Morrie

I’m pretty sure I wrote this after reading The Power of Serving Others (thanks Megan) last summer while still waiting for the right time to go to Africa. My purpose: Starting with what I have now (the little training I have, the little money, the little knowledge) opening my hands and my heart to give what I can right at this moment with the most resources and love I can muster. (Not waiting for money, or a facility, or more education, or more people. But by making the first step and possibly helping answer someone’s prayer through where I am led by God and going.

From Scared by Tom Davis (from Mitch and Cristy) Page 79: (In Swaziland. Pastor Walter talking about how he was teaching at church, and after a child had died while “sleeping” in the back because of starvation.) “It was a wake-up call for me. God’s goodness didn’t just happen because I talked about it. I realized that I had to act. So I started to pray, ‘God, send me people who have the ability and the finances to help us.’ And you know what God said to me? He said, ‘Walter, what’s in your pocket? Start giving to these children out of what you have, and I will take care of the rest. And that’s exactly what has happened. There were many nights when my own children went hungry because other children in our community would die without something to eat. Maybe my kids were a bit skinnier because of that, but we kept other children alive.”

Here are just a few other passages or lines from this book that I liked:

Pastor Walter talked about Jesus’ church – where everyone shared with everyone else. Not only food, but homes, money, everything.

Tagoze, you are God’s answer. You can only say yes to His plans for your life, and you don’t always know how He is working. You have to trust.

In this place, Stu, God has a way of bringing people down to the essence of who they are.

Brother, you are God’s vessel. You, my brother, are the hands and feet of Christ, the hope of Christ to the people.

She said that it tells us sorrow is a part of life, but our tears can leave us with clearer sight, if we look to God.

Matthew 16:23-25 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for Me will find it.”

Proverbs 3:5-6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Job 33: 4 & 6. “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life…Behold, I belong to God like you: I too have been formed out of the clay.”