Wide Awake…and back on this side of the world

Well its 3:30 a.m. here in Oklahoma, and i’m wide awake.  I guess my clock is still on Africa time, the places i was it would be 11:30 a.m. almost lunch time, I hope I don’t get hungry too.  Thats all I need to start eating at 3 in the morning.

So, while I’m up anyway I thought I would share with you a lesson I learned in Rwanda.  After a great Pastors and believers conference, we were milling around and a lot of different people wanted to talk, you know, tell me what they had learned or received from the conference, thanking us for coming, etc.  One of my interpreters came to me and said there is a little mother who would like to speak with you before you leave.  I said ok, she waited for a long time, and finally we walked over to her, and I hugged her and said hello.  She begin to tell us that she had heard me talk about what we were doing for orphans, and she would like to tell me her story and see if I could help her.  She told me that her husband had died two months previous, and he didn’t leave the family prepared.  She has eight children, not uncommon for this culture and they were making it fine when dad was alive but now he was dead, and she had recently lost her job.  She told me that if something didn’t happen, she would not be able to feed her family or pay their rent.  She asked if I would help.  I wave of irritation came over me, because there was really nothing I could do, I thought.

I had the interpreter tell her that I wish i could do something, but the budget we have is very specific and I can’t take monies that are already committed and give to her, because they would be breaking my word to people I promised I would help.  I said, but i will do the most powerful thing I can do, I will pray with you.  by the way I do believe that is the most powerful thing I can do, however sometimes in a moment like this it makes you feel completely impotent, thinking of a need that is so immediate.  So I prayed with her, She cried, and I cried, I hugged her, told her I loved her, and walked away feeling like a hypacrite.  I was thinking, you love her?  then why didn’t you help her, I said to God, this is not right,  i know that my prayer avails much, but please don’t ask me to come to a place that has such need without enough resource to meet the needs I can, I broke my heart, I have to say it made me mad.  I walked back to my room, very frustrated, very angry, this little mother, has not options.

I asked her during the process can you go to your pastor and can help you?  She told me a story that is indicitive of Rwanda right now.  They do not want churches putting up temporary facilities because they are trying to set building standards.  If you don’t have the money to build a permanent facility and you don’t have the money to rent a hall you literally have to disband your church and meet in homes, so many of them are doing cells in homes, but many of them see this as to difficult and are disbanding.  Her pastor disband his church so right now she is without a church home.  So i recommended a church she should try, and then prayed and walked off.

As I was changing clothes, and getting ready to go eat, which felt like an indictment in itself.  I just failed to help a lady who was about to go in to a very difficult time and not be able to feed her family and here I am about to take my team to a restaurant and Eat together, and the cost of it would sustain this lady for a month or more.

As i’m changing, I’m asking, “why couldn’t I help this lady,”  and I believe God impressed on my heart, “why couldn’t you?”  My answer was the same I gave her.  “I don’t have it in the budget,”  The impression grew stronger, “who cares about the budget what do you have in your pocket?”  It dawned on me, the money I had in my pocket would go along way to helping her.  I only had what would equal about 20 or 30 american dollars, but I got inspired.

I finished changing, got my bag, and headed to the bus.  When I got on, I told the bus driver “find that lady, she is walking home, find her.”  No one accept my interpreter and the bus driver new what was going on, and I didn’t have time to explain, but I asked, who will give me, I cant remember what their money is called, but it was the equivalent of 9 or 10 dollars.  I said who will give 10 dollars, I didn’t say why, I didn’t say what it was for, No one cared.  I heard I give it, another Ill give it, and from the back of the bust to the front, people started handing me money.  American’s rwandans everyone.  Finally we rolled up on this woman, I said let me off this bus, and I ran out and met with her, and I apalogized and said there is something I can do, I can give you this.  I handed her this roll of money, I don’t know how much it was, but in her life it was a lot.  She cried and was so thankful, I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but I could sense her gratitude and her love.

This story made me realize that we as americans, we do care, we do want to help, but many times we think if we can’t solve the whole problem then there is nothing we can do.  I don’t know why I thought like that, I don’t know why I thought I have nothing to give, when I clearly did.  We must make it personal, we must realize, no we may not be able to fix it all but there is something we can do.  I am reminded of Moses, God said, “use what you have in your hand.”  I’m reminded of Gideon, “use your pitchers and trumpets, ‘what you have.’”  I’m reminded of Joseph, he used his gift of administration.”  I’m reminded of the new testament church, they used what they had.  Their homes, their love, their friendship, their money, just what they had.  Its amazing what God can do, and what He will make up for if we will just use what we have, and do something.

I really learned something that day, and I will carry it into my day to day activities in my world, because this means everyday, i can do something significant to help someone who needs my help.  Everyday, think about it……Every Day!

I love Jesus

David

An eye opening experience

Yesterday was incredible! We started the day with an early breakfast, and a small meeting as a team, just to talk about the day and what our expectations were and the attitude we wanted to take so we would be the most effective in our ministry to these wonderful people.

After eating we boarded the van to go to a group home for Rwanda survivors. These are homes that are set up with extended family members who come together to help one another. This particular home had several young adults and teenagers, cousins who lost all of their immediate family and were helped by having this home provided for them and receiving support to be able to function. These kids were all trying to get their education and were helping each other live. There were children and early teens and young adults. 32 People in this house. It’s better than nothing, but it’s no near enough space. They are still facing difficulties like money for education, transportation for education and work, and money for medical bills.

We met with them as a team, and after the formal introductions and a bit of small talk, we ask them to tell us their story, one 23 year old young man stood up and begin to speak. He was very unassuming and humble and maybe a little intimidated. I will tell you now the story he told is hard to imagine, hard to even think about, never the less he actually lived it.

He was about 9 years old when the genocide came into full effect, and he was in his home with his mother and Dad and his two sisters. The soldiers busted down the door, they came to kill the family. According to his account they chased his mother and father around the house with machetes and killed them. They then proceeded to chase down his two sisters and killed them both. They came back and got the young boy, and built a coffin in front of him, and told him we are going to bury you in that coffin alive, in fear of such a tortuous death he ran for his life. He hid in the woods and waited to see if it was safe. They had a practice of burning the wooded areas and all the refugees would run out of hiding, when they thought they would burn to death. That’s what they did that day. So when it started burning he ran out of hiding and continue to run, until he ran into a lady who said she would help him, she told him not to worry, then she started berating him for his race, she threw him on the ground and said you are worth nothing, I know this is graphic but true, she then proceeded to urinate on him as if to say you are lower than human waste. She then had him beaten and cut and he showed us scars on his arms and legs and head where he was cut with a machete. They then pulled this nine year old boy who had just watched his mom and dad and two sisters massacred, stripped him of his clothes and tied him in the crucifixion position to a tree, and beat him, and left him for dead, to make sure he would die they set him on fire, then left. Amazingly the fire burned through the ropes and he was spared, when the ropes burned and ran to safety.

As we set listening to the young man it was hard to believe he was standing there in front of us even able to communicate such an occurrence. Can you imagine what this must have done to the mind of an impressionable nine year old boy.

They were made to feel like trash, lower than trash, like nothing. Like they didn’t matter, they were referred to as cockroaches.

As we listened the Lord prompted me to tell them the story of Joseph and how he was abused betrayed and was completely innocent, and how God had given him a vision, and I related to them that God has a plan and purpose for their lives as well, and they should hold on to that and move forward. We then prayed for those who were still suffering physically and emotionally from things that happened during that time, three of them had been shot and still suffer physically as a result.

Pastor Jackson, a man of faith and an excellent spirit is a great visionary and he and his church provide for this home and 23 others. The Church is alive and Well in Rwanda.

We then proceeded back to our meeting hall and had a great first day of conference. The people are wonderful, and have a true heart for God. We did worship, several of our team shared, and I spoke on the identity of being a child of God. The one thing that this nation struggles with is identity. We declared, you are Christian this is your identity, which transcends the thoughts or limitations that man puts on us.

We had a great time with the team and some pastors that with us to hang out, we had some great bacon cheeseburgers, yep that’s right, right here in Kigali. Things are going well, our team is awesome, let me say people of harvest are just a different breed and really live to serve.

Today we start the pastor’s portion of the conference and we hope to help them with church growth, reaching out and leadership development.

-David

Life is great….

I love my life!  It seems to me there are people in life who just want to be miserable.  The glass is half empty, they see the negative in everything.  I just refuse to live my life that way.  Sure I have trials, and issues that come up in life, but I trust God, and He sees me through every situation.  I don’t know how its going to turn out at times, and sometimes I feel like I am stretched to my limits, but God is always there to lean on.  As a result, I have a beautiful wife, who loves me and is the most excellent mother I have ever seen.  I have two wonderful daughters who love me and their mother lavishly and are the best of friends.  My wife and I both have careers that we are passionate about and that contribute to positively effecting others.  I love my life!  Hard times come and go, good times come and go, people come and go, but great friends and great family are forever.  I know, in our society everything I just said sounds cheesy, but I don’t care, because I love my life!  What about you?

Clear the Clutter…

 

Have you ever moved?  If you’re like me you would rather get poked in the eye with a tire iron, than to pack everything up and move it.  The one thing I’ve noticed about moving is, each time we’ve done it we have more stuff than the last time. 

       Some of this “stuff” is no doubt excellent and has great purpose, but when you look around, you realize, a lot of it is useless junk.  Toys your kids haven’t played with in years.  Things that you bought, and said, “I have to have this!” then hardly used it. 

The question is how does all this accumulation affect us?  One effect is, it clutters our homes.  Have you ever felt like you’re cleaning and picking up constantly?  It feels like the job’s never done. 

Another effect is a lack of space.  Have you ever wanted to put your car in the garage, but there was no room?  The garage is made to keep your car out of the weather, and give you easy access to your home, but if you have needless accumulation the car stays outside and you walk in the winter weather to get to the front door and your stuff is packed neatly and “warmly” I might add, in the garage.

Our lives at times look like this type of house.  They are filled will accumulated trinkets of one kind or another. The thing about clutter is, it doesn’t matter if it’s negative or positive, if there’s not room for it in the house it throws everything out of order.  Hebrews 12:1 says “therefore we also, since we are surrounded with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and sin….”  You know, it’s not always sinful and bad things that complicate our lives, sometimes it can be things that are moral and positive but because there is no room for them in our lives they become a weight.  

       Life’s accumulations are just like the clutter in our house, they create an environment where we are constantly picking up after ourselves but don’t seem to be making any progress.  Just like the garage not being used appropriately, our lives many times get out of order because of all the extra accumulation.  When we should be spending time in prayer, or with our families, or working on our marriage, those things which are true priority, we are running around, trying to be seen with the right people, to have the right stuff, and be involved in the right extra curricula’s, yeah, “walking in the cold to the front door, instead of parking in the safety of the garage with easy access to the house.” 

        Another thing accumulation causes is indecisiveness.  We are worried about finances, and relationships, about acceptance and lack of time.  Our mind is so full, going in so many directions that we can’t decide what needs to be done.  We become double minded. 

I know its winter, but it’s time for a good spring cleaning.  Sweep out the clutter; get rid of things that are not truly priority.  Matthew 6:31 (msg) says ^“What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. ³²People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works.”

How do we de-clutter our lives? How do we measure what’s necessary and what’s not?  How do we know when something that is not wrong has become unnecessary accumulation?

       What do we do when our house gets cluttered?  We clean house.  We put things in order. 

Cleaning house takes the renewal of some things and the removal of others.  We have to renew our priorities.  Those things that God says are most important, and then remove the things that steal time and devotion from them.    

       Sometimes we create worry and anxiety in our lives, being frustrated over all the clutter.  We say, “I am so tired of this clutter.” “I am so busy; I don’t have time to clean up.”  The problem with this mind set is nothing changes, as a matter of fact it gets worse and we become more anxious.  Let’s just do what Jesus said, and relax.  Quit fretting and worrying, and clean up.  Matthew 6:33(NKJ) says “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.”

       By doing this we are renewing our focus, we are removing distractions.  We are setting our lives in order to fulfill their true purpose, and to achieve true happiness and fulfillment.

       So, gather your family around, get your broom, and start sweeping.  And before you know it, you’ll be parking in the garage again.  Have a great Christ Centered day.

      

 

-David Gadberry