I have recently been wondering where to find the balance.... or if there even is a balance. My thinking tells me that faith is always a good thing, but maybe I sometimes get confused as to what is actually faith. You hear a lot of people talking as if something will happen, but not really worrying if it doesn't - is that faith? Or is that pretending to have faith? Is that having a little bit of faith? What kind of faith do I have? I want the kind of faith that is CERTAIN of what I do not see.
How does faith co-exist with reality? Maybe this is a silly question.... let's get back to my title, what am I thinking?
Well, I am responsible for paying the bills at the community centre at the moment and we have a lot of bills. In fact, we have more money going out each month than we have coming in (as we all know that can't carry on long term, the savings we had have almost gone). This particular job is one that has caused a lot of stress to people in the past and when I took it on I made a deal with God (if you can actually do such a thing) - it went a bit like this "OK God, I'll do the finance stuff, but, I am NOT responsible for the money coming in - that is your job, OK? I can just pay the bills that have to be paid, receive the money that comes in and document everything - You have to provide and I will NOT worry about it!"
Maybe that's easier said than done, but I've tried to keep my part and when I begin to worry then I have to remind myself that I only have to do my part. So, where is my faith? I have been doing all I can to budget well and to 'be prepared', I believe that is one way I can be a good steward. However, my biggest question is do I allow my desire to be prepared cause me to stop the house from doing things (because they would cost money that we don't have at the moment) when really I should have faith that God will provide? To what extent do we carry on as normal, with the sure conviction of faith that God will provide? Or is this mere foolishness and not accepting our responsibilities in administering well? I'm not talking about doing ridiculous things e.g going out with a credit card and buying nice new furniture saying that I have faith in God to pay the bill at the end of the month. I'm talking about little things, meat in the menu, chlorine for the pool (this is a pool used for swimming lessons for the kids and women in the community, rather than a leisure pool). Are these the kind of things we can expect God to provide for us? What constitutes our needs? When is it that I'm pulling back because I'm being wise or because I'm afraid of the next bill?
Lots and lots of questions, not sure how to answer any of them. Any suggestions?
Friday, October 21, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
So much to write, so little time to write about things.
Lets start with today......This morning, I (Dave) helped a Dutch volunteer with his new project which involves using a room in a local church to spend time with some of the addicted people in the community - people mainly addicted to alcohol but also crack cocaine. We provide cheese bread, coffee, art materials, fizzy drink, a guitar and our prescence. This is the first week of the project and it went well. Two ladies attended, one for about 1 hour the other for around 15 minutes. We were able to talk and pray with the first lady who shared about her husband dying and about her mother leaving her alone in te house when she was a child (She is now in her 50s). When she shared about her childhood she cried alot and it really made me think about how many people carry scars with them that affect them throughout their lives, never having the opportunity to talk about them, process them and recieve healing.
The other lady came to paint. She arrived, refused coffee and cheese bread, saying that she wanted to paint a picture. She painted a house, a tree and wrote her name. She was so child-like during the activity (although she is in her 30s) and very focussed which was a completely different side to her that I had never seen before. She normally works for the drug traffickers as a 'watcher', nearly always 'on edge' and also trying to entice people to buy drugs. It was a time of escapism for her that she neeeded. This project provides simple opportunities for people like this and I believe it will grow into something bigger as word gets around.
This afternoon, we did some house visits and walked in the community for a while. The visits were complicated, needing an intervention from God to make a difference in one of the households, which had some involvement in child trafficking as there were many issues that still had not been resolved from a long time ago. Sorry, but I will not post more about that here.
Human traficking is a BIG business and happens everywhere, it seems, but often goes undetected or even ignored as sometimes it has implications on the price of the goods that we buy. I will endevour to write a post about this soon when I have collected my thoughts together a bit more on the subject.
Lets start with today......This morning, I (Dave) helped a Dutch volunteer with his new project which involves using a room in a local church to spend time with some of the addicted people in the community - people mainly addicted to alcohol but also crack cocaine. We provide cheese bread, coffee, art materials, fizzy drink, a guitar and our prescence. This is the first week of the project and it went well. Two ladies attended, one for about 1 hour the other for around 15 minutes. We were able to talk and pray with the first lady who shared about her husband dying and about her mother leaving her alone in te house when she was a child (She is now in her 50s). When she shared about her childhood she cried alot and it really made me think about how many people carry scars with them that affect them throughout their lives, never having the opportunity to talk about them, process them and recieve healing.
The other lady came to paint. She arrived, refused coffee and cheese bread, saying that she wanted to paint a picture. She painted a house, a tree and wrote her name. She was so child-like during the activity (although she is in her 30s) and very focussed which was a completely different side to her that I had never seen before. She normally works for the drug traffickers as a 'watcher', nearly always 'on edge' and also trying to entice people to buy drugs. It was a time of escapism for her that she neeeded. This project provides simple opportunities for people like this and I believe it will grow into something bigger as word gets around.
This afternoon, we did some house visits and walked in the community for a while. The visits were complicated, needing an intervention from God to make a difference in one of the households, which had some involvement in child trafficking as there were many issues that still had not been resolved from a long time ago. Sorry, but I will not post more about that here.
Human traficking is a BIG business and happens everywhere, it seems, but often goes undetected or even ignored as sometimes it has implications on the price of the goods that we buy. I will endevour to write a post about this soon when I have collected my thoughts together a bit more on the subject.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Once again, I am shocked by how much time had passed since we wrote anything. Not that nothing has been happening, we just got out of the rhythm of updating the blog.
The base that we work for (YWAM Belo Horizonte) is celebrating 25yrs, so this last week and this week we are joining in this celebration. Instead of just organising a party or a special service they have decided to raise awareness and action against human trafficking. We all know that even though slavery has long been abolished it is still ramant in our world. This campaign is particularly relevant to Brazil, as the up coming world cup will see many people wanting to import slaves and prostitutes for this time. Our base leader invited government officials to participate along with all other contacts.
The teaching has been great, some statistics (not so many as to overwhelm me), some bible verses sharing God's heart and tips on how to make a difference. The organisation that is doing the majority of the teaching is called not for sale - check out their website to discover more, another interesting site (through them) is free to work which shows you a rating of how good or bad a company is with regard to human slavery, helping us to avoid buying from companies that don't care about human slavery - just like people gave up sugar many years ago to make their stand, it worked!
Currently, Dave is attending a 3 day seminar which addresses other ways of getting involved and how we can make a difference. He can then update on other ways to bring about change and be a voice for the voiceless.
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