The Father's Heart

Have you ever felt completely inadequate for the things you feel like God is placing before you? Do you feel like you are being called to things that are so far beyond you that they are impossible? Do you sometimes feel like an impostor in your Christian walk, like if others knew the real you, you would be finished? I think that all of us have faced these insecurities at one time or another, maybe it was not in the Church or ministry. Maybe it was on the job or in an area that you volunteered. There is a common theme that seems to run throughout our inner narrative. "Am I good enough? Do I have what it takes?" I think that this inner dialogue may be one of the most destructive things in our lives. After all, how we think about ourselves goes a long way in determining the limits we will self impose. I hear many people say that they are not called to missions but what most of them really mean is that they feel inadequate for that task. The truth is that all believers in Jesus are called to missions, for some it is in their neighborhood or workplace, for others it is in their local Church and for some, it is far from home, friends and family. The other truth is that none of us is capable of fulfilling the task, but the Jesus living in us is more than able.

I have been thinking about this a lot over the last few months. I have considered the different ways that a appraise my own value and usually I measure my worth in the ability to accomplish though I might never admit it to others. (until writing this) My pastor back in the States has been challenging me on this. He has been encouraging me to find my identity outside of work and achievement and to rest in the work of Jesus. Also he has been encouraging me to be in a place of receiving ministry rather than feeling like I need to work and give all of the time. Because of this, you may have noticed an absence of blog updates for the last 2 months. It seemed that while I was in the States, I spent much time looking for tasks to finish while there and he spent time reminding me of my need to receive.

The task that I see next on my plate is much bigger than me. God has continually been reminding me of the widow and the orphan. We are called to reach out to them with the love of Jesus and help them find identity and family in Him. As I have talked with friends and listened to their hearts, I am realizing that his task is much larger than I would have ever thought. While the number of actual orphans may or may not be accurate as the U.N. reports, the number of children and adults living as orphans is huge. There are millions of kids growing up without any real nurture from parents or a responsible adult. It is common in many places for children to be seen fending for themselves at 5 years old. Parents, dealing with the difficulties of a life of poverty often choose survival over nurturing. This is not to condemn the mothers. They often are doing all they can just to provide a little food and a place to sleep. This is the place that we, the Church are called to step in.

The task is huge. The number of latchkey and unattended kids is beyond our ability to comprehend. There are millions in the world, thousands in Guatemala and they are growing up, at least the ones that do not die in infancy, to at best work menial jobs for little money and repeat the same cycle of poverty. At worst they are becoming the gang members, drug dealers and prostitutes that are behind much of the crime and violence that have become common. People that have grown up with no sense of worth will look for significance wherever it can be found. Unfortunately they find it in sex, money, drugs, violence, extortion, intimidation and murder. The gangs are full of people that were recruited because they were easy targets. Nobody had told them that they had value and now someone is offering the money and respect on the street. All of a sudden they have significance and an identity.
Fortunately, God loves them and the message of salvation is for them. The best way to end gang recruitment and dry up membership is to introduce potential members to a loving Father before they join. I believe God is just looking for people that will say yes, we will carry His love to them and help them to find their true identity.

I have spent  much of the last month resting, reading and focusing on who I am in Jesus, the identity that He wants me to carry into the world so that He can be seen. I have now applied to Kaleo Iris School of Missions in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, on the Texas-Mexico border. It is my desire to learn to minister the heart of a Father to the orphans and the orphaned hearts of the world. I also realize that I cannot do that effectively without and close intimate relationship with God. Only as the perfect Father fathers us can we share His heart with others. Only as I learn to really walk in the identity of sonship will I have the confidence to be who He is calling me to be. This school lasts for 2+ months and then there is an 18 day outreach into Mexico. My intention is to return to Guatemala after this with a fresh view of Father's heart to minister here.

I applied to this school because I believe God is calling me there. I see the need to be prepared and to have my life so deeply rooted in the love of Jesus that I can be fearless wherever He may lead. My deposit has been sent in but now I have to send in another $3,600 by Dec 13 and I have to buy plane tickets, continue to pay my health insurance, rent and other bills in Guatemala and cover all of my personal expenses for the next 5 months. I am praying for $8,000 between now and the end of the year so that all of the expenses can be dealt with before I leave the U.S. This would be a huge miracle to me but I know God is fully able to provide every need. At the same time, I am praying for the provision needed for 2018 so that finances never burden the work that God desires to do. I am asking that you would pray with me and ask for God's provision and for His blessing on everything that He wants to accomplish in the coming year.

I am excited for the next chapter. I do not have a clue as to how God is going to move in my life but I know that He is looking for available vessels to reveal His glory through. He wants people to encounter His love and I want to have greater encounters with Jesus so that He can use me to show Himself to the wounded and broken, to the orphan and widow.  I want to be able to be fearless and even reckless  in my pursuit of God and then to be fearlessly and recklessly available to Him as He desires to make His love known.

If you would like to help support me and the plans I feel God is leading me into you can send checks to the address below.

Life Church Morris
P.O. Box 679
Morris, IL 60450
Write Mission San Lucas in the memo line, not my name

If you would like to know more, feel free to contact my by email, What'sApp or Facebook.
Thank you

When Life Gets Busy

It has been a busy month around here. We have had a team of women come and begin the dialogue about ending a culture of violence against women and children. We had our friends from Ohio and Pennsylvania come and help us get started on the construction of the new Church building in San Lucas and we had a group from McKinney Christian Academy in Texas come to build houses and also reach out to the kids in Zapote with the love of Jesus. Each week was different and good in its own way.

Violence in Guatemala is a major problem. Some of you may have seen the story from the government run children's home. Over 30 girls have died as a result of a fire that they set in an attempt to escape this place. They were locked in their dorm rooms like prisoners. The stories of abuse and overcrowding have been hard to read. On Monday night many of the children decided to take action in response to their living conditions. They rioted and 60 or so escaped at least temporarily. The children were returned to their rooms and locked in. That is when the fire was started. I will not share the rest of the story here but will say that you can read about it all over the internet. It is the biggest story here currently. I will say though that it is just one more sign of the need for healing in this country that can only come through Jesus. The conversations that this team of women started is a step in that direction.

Buses bringing people to celebrate

After this team of ladies left, we dedicated the new property where the Church building will be built. We had people from Churches in Zapote, Santo Thomas, Magdelana, Membrillal and Chimaltenango come for the celebration along with 2 teams that were here and leaders from the community and from the CMA. They came on 8 buses and there was between 700 and 800 people. When this building is complete, we will have a much better ability to reach out and help meet the needs of the San Lucas area. It was an exciting day.


Our Fairhaven team from Pennsylvania and Ohio came next. Every year when they come it is a time for celebration. There has not been a project that Galilea has undertaken in the last 17 years that this group has not been a part of. Their history in Guatemala and their friendship are invaluable. This year they worked on numerous projects to begin  the new Church building in San Lucas. They built a storage building with a living area for a guard. They removed many trees, helped establish the grade depth for the foundation, tied columns and footer grids and poured the first footers for the building. They also welded the new gates that will sit at the entrance.. Along with all of that, they encouraged all of us with their presence and their words.

Finally we worked with many of the senior class and  some staff and chaperons from the Mckinney Christian Academy.. This group returned for a second year and they built three houses in Zapote along with a stove. They also went to the school and had after school activities with the kids for three days.They had opportunities for several to share their testimonies with the kids as well as play games and renew some friendships from last year. This group was generous in every way and I would like to thank them for coming and working with  us
In the midst of all of this, God showed me a couple of things clearly. The first was for me personally. If I am not spending time working on my relationships, first with Him and then with the people that I am with, the work is not that important. It is in relationship that our work gains value. If my relationship with God suffers because I am to busy, I am no longer working with Him and it just becomes labor. The value is exponentially diminished because the one who it is for is no longer in the middle of it. If it does not build relationships with the people that the work is with and for, it also looses value. If we are not building relationship, how can we live in the unity that Jesus called us to. We have  just begun to work but without any of the things that give our work value.

The second thing that He was showing me was a different mindset that exists  between a son and an orphan. One leads to  a type of prosperity and the other to poverty. A son knows that he has a father, is loved and has  a reliable source of provision. An orphan feels abandon and needs to try and scrape by on whatever little they can claw out of the world. A son knows that their father has enough and that they do not need to be jealous of others. An orphan always feels like someone else's success has cost them. Orphans cannot rejoice at what someone receives because they feel left out. A son knows that all they have is a blessing from father and he is faithful not just to them but to all that will receive his provision. Not all prosperity is financial but it is all in a mindset that is content, knowing that their needs are being met by someone that loves them. Orphans,in spirit always feel like they lack something no matter how much they have. Their mindset locks them into looking at and comparing their  worth to others and they always come up short. I sometimes fall into the orphan category and am grateful for all of the reminders that I am a son and have received a spirit of adoption.

I am hoping to begin to send out support and prayer letters in the next couple of months. They will be more specific than the blog and will tell you how you can support and pray for me, Galilea and all for the work going on in our projects. If you would like to receive this, send me a message with your contact info and will get you on the list. Thanks

Grumbling and Complaining

Last week was a busy week. We had a team come in on Friday, the 13th and start working the next morning on smoothing the roof of the Church building to make it more kid friendly since they are using the rooms and the open space more for Sunday School..We had to haul 35 . 100lb bags of cement along with countless buckets of sand and gravel to the third floor. The old surface had to be roughed up to accept new concrete and then we had to mix, carry and level all of that mix.

Throughout the following week, we worked on prepping for the foundation pour in Membrillal and building 2 stoves and a house in Zapote. The work is often tiring and tedious, whether you are digging and moving several dozen yards of dirt by hand or standing in one place all day tying re-bar for columns. I can say that in doing these things, the mind set on the flesh is death.

While I was working, I started noticing a pattern in my thought process. I always wanted to be doing what someone else was doing. If I was wheel-barreling, I wanted to shovel. If I was shoveling, I wanted to tie. If I was working on the house, I wanted to work on the stove. Contentment was never found when I focused on my work. The issue was, that I chose what I was doing. I would wait until all of the jobs were taken and look for what needed to be done so I willing chose to do what I was doing.

I started seeing how this plays out in all aspects of life. I frequently find myself comparing myself to others. What do they have that I do not? Why can they do something I cannot? Why did they get the job that I wanted? The devil brings these thoughts and jealousies in subtly. He does it in a way that we take ownership of them almost immediately and then dwell on them until they begin to consume us. Comparison is one  of the enemies worst schemes to destroy our lives.

As I recognized these thoughts, I started to see how to combat them. God is the one that has put me in this position. He has me there for a purpose. He is growing me into the person that I was created to be and I can praise Him for all of these things. He has not abandon me to be a manual laborer. He has made me a Kingdom builder. The work I do is all necessary for the building of His Kingdom in this place and it translates into a better inheritance for me as a joint heir with Jesus.

God does not need me, or any of us to accomplish His work on the earth. He could do the things that He has called us to more efficiently than we can do them. He brings us along like a Father bringing a child to work to learn the family business, assigning us tasks so that we can have the joy of accomplishment and a sense of belonging and ownership in what will be our inheritance. He gives us Kingdom building work because he knows it is important for us to learn that we have a place in His heart and in His creation. He calls us to do His work out of His overwhelming love for us. He does not need us to do it but we do need to do the work if we want to have assurance of our place in the kingdom of God.

If you get to feeling like me, remember that God is not using you because He needs you. he is giving you opportunities to grow as a son or daughter and learn to live in this community of family that is the Body of Christ. Stop comparing and complaining. Begin to praise God because he is making you into exactly what he has created  you to be.