Christianity 101 | Ain't Complicated

Don’t Forget Haiti!

Here is the January 12 updated from Christian Aid Ministries:

This week, CAM sent three air-shipments and two 40′ sea-containers to Haiti. They contained 3,705 tarps, ropes, 652 hygiene kits, 224 comforters, 1,797 blankets, 104 pairs of crutches, 49 pallets of medicines and supplies, 32,000 pounds of rice, 3,780 pounds of beans, 1,200 cans of chicken. We also sent beans, canned chicken, and other items for our regular Haiti school program. Our regular programs must go on, in spite of the tremendous amount of earthquake needs.

Lisa Miller, staff member in Haiti, writes, We are still feeling tremors here occasionally. Tuesday evening we felt one; it lasted just long enough to make me wonder if the tremors are ever going to stop.

An unexpected blessing arrived yesterday. Another aid organization shipped down a pallet of baby formula with no way to distribute it. They contacted us, and we now have a pallet of baby formula to distribute to our clinics – a much needed item.

The need for cash donations to help the hurting in Haiti is urgent.

Please visit my Haiti page for more information and for donation options.

Christian Aid Ministries in Haiti

From CNN:

Christian Aid Ministries, an Amish-Mennonite organization, has had staff and a distribution network in Haiti for over 20 years. To help earthquake survivors, they are providing search and rescue operations, emergency supplies such as medicines and food, and later on rebuilding of houses.

From CAM themselves:

CAM-Haiti staff members spent much of the night helping dig people out of concrete rubble. They were traumatized by what they saw and heard — dead bodies strewn around, sounds of tapping from those still alive but trapped deep under the debris, dead and injured pushed in wheelbarrows, and much more. It is so scary digging people out; one wrong move could kill them, says Darvin Seibel, CAM’s staff member in Haiti. One lady’s head was pinched so tight, any shifting would instantly kill her!

[…]

Our Titanyen facility has been turned into a relief center and mini-hospital to feed and care for homeless mothers with young children. A USA CAM rescue team, including some EMTs, flew to Haiti to help look for survivors and do cleanup. Our staff in Haiti, including the La Source medical clinic team, is doing everything they can to provide emergency aid. Later there will be a lot of rebuilding to do as well.

As I recall, over 98% of donations to Christian Aid Ministries goes directly into their programs. That’s really good!! So please visit the Haiti page I set up for them and donate to their relief efforts.

He Came!

“And the light shineth in darkness” (John 1:5).

“He was in the world” (John 1:10).

“He came” (John 1:11).

“But as many as received him” (John 1:12).

“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us…full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

He came…to turn my darkness to light.

He came…enlighten me.

He came…that I might know Him.

He came…so I could receive Him.

He came…to give me the option of becoming a child of God.

He came…to show me His glory.

He came…to live among people such as I am.

He came…full of grace and truth…for me.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for coming!

[The Scriptures say in John 1:5 -- The light shineth in darkness]

from John 1:5

A Mechanical Shepherd

Well, not really a mechanical shepherd, but a shepherd who looks like a mechanic and a mechanic who acts like a shepherd. But makes a much-too-long title.

Every Christmas we trot out the crèche again. We peel off the newspaper wrappings and arrange the usual cast of characters—three wise men holding presents one kneeling; three shepherds one with lamb on shoulders; infant bearing adult’s demeanor, arms outstretched; Mary genuflecting by the straw crib; Joseph hovering over his wife.

We say the usual things about the shepherds: “See how God loves the humble. See how He revealed himself to those rough men and not to the wise and learned. Were there no great scribes and teachers in Jerusalem that God should pass them over to go to a field?” We say all that but we would drop dead with surprise if in our day God brought important news to Joe Homeless in South Philadelphia and gave him the assignment of delivering the message to the local accredited Bible schools. He wouldn’t get past the receptionist.

I met a real live “shepherd” last week in Bernville, Pa. His name is Andy Merrick and he looks a little rough, to tell you the truth. It’s because he spends a lot of time under cars and at car auctions, buying and repairing vehicles for missionaries. In high school his friends took bets that he wouldn’t live past 19. God had other plans. After he got saved, Andy thought part of that plan was Bible school. But when he tried to wrap his mind around Greek and Hebrew paradigms, he didn’t know why he was there, and he says the teachers didn’t either.

Andy went to Peru as a missionary for 18 months and noticed they were working with lousy equipment, so he came back home and started collecting and fixing cars for them, till his neighbors in South Jersey objected to the fleet on his lawn and he had to ask God for more land, which the Lord obliged him with.

Andrée Seu wrote that (and a bit more) over at WorldMagBlog: The shepherd thing.

Christmas Bummer

What you’re about to read will take you in a direction different than you expected to go:

He sees her as we circle the parking lot a second time, an aimless, wandering circle, a time-killing circle while we wait for their mother to finish a bit of shopping. I have already seen the woman — a girl, really, with tangled dark hair and downturned gaze. She sits on a little concrete median between the entering and exiting traffic, and she holds a cardboard sign asking for money. Not even money, just anything. “Anything helps,” her sign says.

I have already seen her, and so, having nothing better to do, I am engaged in a lukewarm internal debate. Should I give her money? What will she do with the money? Should I drive across the street and get her McDonald’s? Don’t poor people eat badly enough as it is? What about teriyaki chicken from a nearby Japanese place? But will she turn her nose up at that? Will the drivers behind me hit their horns when I stop to give her the money or cheeseburger or chicken with rice? Will people look askance at a man stopping to talk to a young woman on the side of the road? There’s so much to be calculated, you see, in the doing of small good.

Then Caleb sees her. “Dad,” he says, “there’s a woman in the road holding a sign. What does it say?”

“She’s asking for money,” I tell him. We talk about the reasons why a person might be so poor that they take to begging in traffic. They mostly come down to bad choices and illnesses of the heart and mind.

“We should give her some money,” he says.

[…]

I am proud of my son and I want to be like him and I am afraid one day he will be like me, all of these thoughts in me at once, and so what I say is that I love him.

If you only read what I have excerpted above, you are cheating yourself. You really should read the full story over at Sand in the Gears.

Then clean out your gearbox.

And a joyous Christmas to you as well.

Update: Avoiding Eye Contact

Hey, Sister!

You’re held to a higher standard!

Let down by a Mennonite

Such are the inheritances of my up-bringing that I still have a twinge of conscience regarding shopping on Sundays. So it has been with a certain kind of nostalgic pleasure that I have noted that Amish and Mennonite businesses are closed on Sundays in Sarasota. “Good for them” I have thought, “they hang on to some healthy counter-cultural traditions”.

I hoved up to “Sam’s Club” this afternoon, to buy some catfish at a good price. The store was out of stock!.

As I entered the store I saw a 70-something Mennonite woman easily identifiable by her attire as she left “Sam’s Club” with a full cart/trolley.

I felt betrayed.

Before you react against the above writer, read his full post, especially the conclusion.

That said, I react with dismay (and worse) at this kind of Mennonite witness, for I also am a Mennonite.

But…why is this a Mennonite witness? Why not a Christian witness?

The question isn’t merely, “What has happened to the Mennonites?”

It’s also, “What has happened to the Christians?!”

Sunday observance just doesn’t matter anymore.

That’s too bad.

Sewing Hope

Through the Gospel for Asia Christmas Gift Catalog, ten women were given a desperately-needed second chance. These women came from a painful background — some had AIDS, some left the sex trade, and others were abused. Each received a sewing machine and hope for a new life.

Ten GFA-supported missionaries delivered the machines with a message of God’s love. The sewing machines provide these women with a source of income and the ability to sustain themselves, along with preventing a future drenched in despair. Learning to sew opens up job opportunities that weren’t previously attainable.

Aishwarya Baiji prayed faithfully with her husband that God would provide a sewing machine; she had long dreamed of being a seamstress. As a field worker, Aishwarya earned only half the wages that men were paid. After receiving a GFA-provided sewing machine, she and fellow believer Kanta Baiji planned to share this hope with others in their village.

Full article at Mission Network News.