These Idle Sticks

That this could be my prayer as well:

"God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life that I may burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life but a full one like You, Lord Jesus." - Jim Elliot

Local vs. Global-mindedness: Why we don't really get to choose.

What do you think of when you hear the word poverty?

I think maybe the most common mental image is children walking barefoot through slums in India. Maybe it's a single mom living in a tiny run-down apartment with with a bunch of hungry kids in Chicago. Maybe it's the homeless man "camping" down the street from you in the park your children like to play in during the day.

Here's the issue though. Poverty surrounds us. I look up and see poverty every day, in so many ways. So do you. Many of people choose to ignore it, but not you. You allow the images seep into your mind and maybe even stimulate that supramarginal gyrus, the part of your brain that allows you to have empathy.

But then you are struck by the enormity of the problem. You pray, you distract yourself and say "poverty will always be with us" so what's the point?

But that still bothers you though, right? And we have enough poverty in our own country to worry about, let's help them before the other billions living in abject poverty globally.

The problem is even deeper though. The problem is that we are hopeless. We see American poverty and global poverty as two different issues.

My wife volunteers for an organization that sends boxes of care items to impoverished children worldwide every Christmas season that also open up doors for sharing the gospel in these regions. She annually polls churches in our region for how many of these shoe-boxes they would like to fill and have distributed. There is one church in particular that has turned her down every year. When this opportunity is brought to their attention she has received some interesting responses.

Once she was describing the program to a secretary a few years ago and the secretary said that they don't focus on global issues. They try to only help those right here in this little town. Amazingly, the church ended up packing and sending shoe-boxes anyway.

This year, she brought the issue up again and asked if they'd be donating and they again declined stating that they are making "care packages" of some sort of local children in foster care. This is a commendable thing, caring for the kids separated from their biological moms and dads for a variety of reasons, leading them to feel I'm sure quite forgotten, lonely and without love.

My challenge to this church, and to you is this: This is not an "either-or" situation. We don't need to either be local community-minded or globally-minded. We need to be both. We need to care about the poverty in the streets of Stockton, Modesto, Turlock, Manteca, Riverbank and Oakdale as much as the poverty in the streets of Jakarta, Kathmandu, Tegucigalpa, Aleppo, Mumbai, and Port-Au-Prince.

Here, we have hospitals, social services, aid organizations, police to protect them, churches that see those struck by poverty as individuals, not a problem of numbers and statistics. "Over there", aid agencies are financially strapped and governments are increasingly cracking down on outside influence and access to the impoverished. Hospitals are under-staffed, under-funded, few and far-between. Churches, if they exist in the area, are usually small and as poor as the region they reside in. Police notoriously stay out of international slums, allowing for exploitation, forced labor, human trafficking and violent crimes to go unpunished and unchallenged.

Their problem is our problem. As long as we do nothing to stop it, give it no passing thought, no prayer, no part of ourselves to the solution, we are allowing this to go on. Not just in Mumbai, but here, at home. Their exploitation is our exploitation. Their pain is our pain. Their suffering is our suffering. We were never given the liberty to ignore the plight of the poor and the lost.

But what can we do, right?

Here's a quick suggestion, because this is not an easy transition to make from thinking in a sort of a "them" and "us" dichotomy to thinking "they are us" globally, just start by praying.

Like me, you may need to repent for not caring, for ignoring, or for being too wrapped up in providing comfort for yourself to feel the empathy (that our bodies were designed to actually be able to feel for a reason). Ask God to break your heart. No, seriously. Ask God to break your heart for the poor and the lost. Look for Jesus in your interactions with others as you talk about poverty. Listen for apathy in your life and pray for it to be replaced with a sense of purposeful empathy to be His image-bearing, heaven-revealing Jesus-follower right here on earth... the whole earth.

Thinking back to Haiti 2015 (Part 1)

Elizabeth and I traveled together to Haiti in 2015 to work with International Healthcare Mnistries and the Baptist Haiti Mission Hospital to share the love of Jesus with rural Haitians through medicine and friendship.

It was, as all of these medical mission trips are, life changing for so many people. I would just like to share some of the photos from the journey again.

I'll start with photos from our first two days in Haiti. The first village we set up our clinic in was a tiny stone and mortar school that was a long 3 hour or so drive down rocky mountain roads in the back of a large flat bed pick-up.

Standing in the back of the flat bed is a surprisingly exhausting way to travel. (and not easy on a guy who just had back surgery less than a month prior)

A view from the road of a typical rural home and garden with banana trees and leftover USAID tarps from the earthquake recovery covering roofs.

one of the most beautiful roads in Haiti. We were about to drive probably close to a blistering 20mph at this point of the trip.

Arriving at our first clinic day began with school being dismissed early and a lot of interest from the kids. 

This was a normal routine in the morning, I think we only did this once or twice. This is a local preacher leading a morning Bible study on the Baptist Haiti Mission Hospital Grounds.

Yep. That's what a mobile pharmacy looks like. Abbey (the one on the right) did an excellent job running unquestionably the most delicate, challenging and detail-oriented departments of the mission.

Local translators get a medical history from the patients, then tell them "the doctor will see you and will help you because we love you in the name of Jesus, Would you like to hear more about Jesus?"
The patients are all assured that their medical complaints will be heard and treated without regard to their religious convictions.

Waiting to be seen.

I'm such an amazing photographer.

View from the school house looking over the mountainous terrain surrounding us on all sides in Chofa.

Even Haiti has some rich folks.

Day 2, we opted out of putting 15 people in the back of a flat bed and instead packed up Toyota Landcruiser and two ATVs. A much better way to travel.

This is a typical little roadside market where anything from chewing gum to charcoal is normally sold. These dot the highways and rural roads of back country Haiti.

I would always ask patients if they would like to pray about anything after I had finished seeing them for their medical complaints. I had to deliver quite a bit of bad news from time to time, because there were thins that I was simply unable to treat. We made as many referrals to the BHM hospital, which I'm positive many people took to heart. Still, there were other cases that I just knew even the Hospital wouldn't have the resources to treat. Living in a developing country is a tough life, somehow though, with everything Haitians have been through over the last 2 centuries, this nation is filled with some of the most indomitably joyful, wise, caring and generous people I've ever met.

The next blog post with show days 3 and 4 of our May 2015 Medical Mission Trip to Haiti.

Created for Good Works.

Got to thinking about this verse today and how it applies to raising my three kids. I acknowledge that modeling a more Christ-like life is essential to their future development as men and women in a culture that is increasingly hostile to our faith and conscience.

Here are four principles of Godly parenting that were discussed in church today. 

"We must fuel our children for success!!
Establish healthy boundaries.
Embrace Biblical values.
Embody Christ-like character." 

-The River Christian Community

Jesus payed a larger price than you probably think.

I sin. But don't get all judgy. So do you. IN fact we all sin. That's why Jesus had to die on the cross as an atoning sacrifice and ransom for our sins. I recently read a short story about a boy who built a toy sailboat with great diligence. While playing with it near the coast, the wind changed directions and he lost it to the sea. Or so her thought. Several weeks later as he was walking past a toy shop, he spotted the sailboat in the window. He went in to reclaim his prized possession. The shop keeper refused to give it to him and demanded for him to pay for it. As the boy left the store with his hand-built special toy he was over heard saying, "You are twice my sailboat. First I built you, then I bought you."

That story really resonated with me last night as I was studying through 1 Corinthians and came to this verse. Do I really understand that price of that Jesus payed for the sinners. It probably isn't possible to over estimate the cost. 

I think that if we spent a bit more time thinking about the price that Jesus payed for us, we could better understand what it means to belong to Him. We might appreciate the pain our sin causes. We might be more in love with this gracious Father God who sent His Son into the world to suffer and die for us that his righteousness might be imparted to us.

This should inspire all of us not only to live more righteous lives, not out of fear of God's judgement but in reverence for His perfect loving nature, in gratitude for the price Christ payed on the cross and out of love for a Lord and Savior who came into the world to justify us even when we were and are in staunch rebellion against Him. This should inspire us to tell others about Him. This should inspire us to actively pursue His will and His calling in our lives. We should be inspired to live completely and totally for Him, after all, we are twice His.

Medical Mission Mentors: A Thank You Note

Dr. Sorg and I strategizing on how and where to set-up our mobile clinic in rural Haiti in 2011

Some days I feel like writing but don't have a plan. I know what I want, but I don't know how to accomplish what I want.

I want someone who can help me figure out how to follow my dream of being a career medical missionary. I have an excellent, albeit extremely busy mentor, Dr. Jack Sorg of ABWE. He was a missionary surgeon in the Amazon Basin for 20 years with his wife Sandy. He travels all over the world still, working for ABWE and leading teams on foreign medical mission trips on almost every continent to strengthen and extend the churches that already there.

I turn to him for advice as often as I need it. He is a great resource for me of spiritual and professional wisdom. I praise and thank God for this man and his availability to me.

We first met 5 years ago shortly following the tragic earthquake in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. We wound up on a team heading up into the rural villages surrounding PAP and seeing to the medical and spiritual needs of those who had been all but cut off from the infrastructure that had previously existed in Port-au-Prince.

That was my first experience with medical missions, but before I even went, I knew that this was something that I had been called to. I was just a paramedic then. I was taking my pre-requisities for PA school during the day at a local junior college and working nights on an ambulance in Stockton, CA. I exhausted my Montgomery GI Bill before I even started PA school at Stanford. With 3 kids and a mortgage, having visited Haiti twice and no income, it would be 3 years before I saw Dr. Sorg again. It was at a conference where I met up with him and another missionary surgeon whom I revere for his generous spirit and willingness to speak into my life when I need encouragement, Dr. Bob Cropsey.

I guess I just needed to take a moment and express my gratitude for how these two men have made a positive impact in my life over the last few years and how I increasingly lean on their wisdom and insight to further prepare me for this dream I have.

If you are looking for a mentor to help you get started in medical missions, this site is a great place to start: http://www.medicalmissions.com/community/mentors

Shatter Your Plans on the Floor

"Pieter Bruegel the Elder - The Tower of Babel (Vienna) - Google Art Project - edited"

I would not have chosen to do it this way. I never really wanted to be a Physician Assistant. It should have never occurred to me to use medical training to fulfill the Great Commission, yet it did. I had no plans for anything apart from making a living, raising some kids and watching some hockey on my days off.

I did not aspire to leave my firefighting job after working so hard to land it. I did not want to turn down a flight medic position (a job I had dreamed of since I was a teenager). I did not wake up one morning and just decide that it would be in my best interest to quit my career as a paramedic so that I could live on a fraction of the pay, live out of a suitcase for two years while my family barely scraped by a hundred miles away. I never considered that it would be this great idea to miss four solid months of work due to debilitating and paralyzing illness and injury during my rookie year of being a PA. I did not decide that it was best for me to go to rural Haiti, travelling on rocky mountain back roads in an SUV a month after spinal surgery. I did not conclude to have such financial insecurity in my first year as a PA.

My Tower of Babel (and we all have one) crumbled, as they always do. Apparently some people build more sturdy towers than me, because the second I place one brick on top of another, it seems, God knocks it over. I suppose (and I am) thankful that He does. I'm learning to not ask why. And I don't look at it as if I'm being bullied.

Here's how the story goes down: Some guys want to build a city and tower that would reach the heavens and unite the world. Literally, they said "...so that we can make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:4)

That's all well and good, right? Nope. Not for God's people. Who do we as His adopted children exalt in our efforts, our accomplishments, our life goals? GOD. Yahweh!

I'm not saying that I've failed at anything (of course I've failed at lot's of stuff) but what I'm saying is that God is at work. He sets my path straight. When I focus on my own schemes and dreams, I tend to look away from the perfect plan of God because what I want is, more often than not, quite self-serving.

If we seek the Lord's Kingdom, that tendency to pursue more self-exalting things becomes less and less of a burden. As we seek to exalt the Lord in our lives, our struggles and troubles and failures, and hardships and set-backs adn even our tragedies begin to make more sense. Of course there are many "why?" questions that will never be answered. I think one of the primary functions of this faith is to eliminate the need to have our "why's" and answered and just continue on, enduring for His glory, even when our plans fall to pieces.

What do you think? I'd love to hear from you and your ideas.