News from missionaries .....

News from missionaries.....


"The other day some friends stopped by as I was in the middle of building a fire. I felt guilty as I looked at the bucket of coal and the box full of kindling beside our stove. Last time I visited their house they were feeding their fire with cardboard boxes. Unemployment in........... looks like a pile of cardboard boxes beside the fire place, it looks like a bowl of tea the color of dish water instead of milky ivory. It looks like a plate piled high with coarse homemade flour noodles and only one or two insignificant flecks of meat showing. It looks like small tabs at all the local shops, and relationships with friends that have been terminated over ten dollar loans that never got paid."


I received this missive from a missionary friend.  They live very simply in another country.  The people have low employment, living on day work when it is available, maybe loading a truck or making bricks or whatever they can find...

When I look around me, a small house by US standards, a mansion by world standards ...I am not collecting cardboard to keep warm or cook with, I have meat/food in my freezer, running water on demand, fuel for my car, a hospital down the street, entertainment abounding.....Abundance....but within a few blocks there are those who face the same as these people on foreign soil...

Our world goes from extreme poverty to opulent abundance with all the gradations in between...with some populations starving and others throwing away food...we have beggars on the corners, mansions on hills, tents and handouts, $1000 jeans and malls, thrift stores and day old bakeries/dumpster diving...those who want to work and those who don't.....the givers and takers....in every culture...

Just because you are a Christian doesn't guarantee wealth or poverty...it seems there will always be both...but we have hope in Christ...which far exceeds the riches or poverty the world offers...

I want to be found trustworthy in handling true riches ......and open to the calling of giving....thank YOU for Your provision of True riches through Christ...may I use what You have given wisely...

Luke 16:11
So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?

Ephesians 1:7
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace

Ephesians 1:18
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people.

Ephesians 2:7
in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 3:8
Although I am less than the least of all the Lord’s people, this grace was given me: to preach to the Gentiles the boundless riches of Christ,

Ephesians 3:16
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

Philippians 4:19
And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.

Colossians 1:27
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Colossians 2:2
My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ,