Ten Together
A campaign for Forgotten Voices International.
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Discover stories of hope all advent long right here. Read 3 stories of unexpected hope in unexpected places by reading our Christmas 2011 Mailing. For many people the end of a year marks an opportunity to reflect on lessons learned. Today’s blog post is one of those for me.
This year, in some ways, I feel like I’m limping into the Christmas season, tired, weary, and emotionally empty, yet hopeful and exptectantat at Christmas. This has been a very hard year for me and many of us at Forgotten Voices. Children that we know, such Vuyani, passed away far too early in life. Dear friends in Africa lost loved ones and those losses impacted me profoundly. Dear friends in the USA experienced traumatic situations from loss of jobs to divorces to death. This year I got to experience, more than ever before, the reality that our ministry serves our supporters, just as much as it serves the chidlren and churches I love to serve in Africa. After nearly 8 years of leading our ministry, I’ve now sat bedside next to 100s of people dying of AIDS related illnesses, who either died soon there after or fought their way through to health for a short season more.All of this adds up. One of the piercing realities of those bedside exchanges is the look in the eye of someone who is about to pass away. For most of the children and adults I have witnessed going through this in Africa, I am always struck by the look of regret — dying too young, decisions they wish they could do over, or simply wanting more time.
This Christmas I have been thinking about the manger scene a little differently. Like many I see the shepherds who were watching their sheep by night, traveling across the fields to find a baby lying in the manger. I am imagining that they haven’t showered in awhile like you and I do (probably too often). There wasn’t time or they didn’t take it to prepare themselves to see the baby, cleaning up properly. They came expectantly, as they are, to see their King lying in a manger.I think of the wise men, cloaked in royal cloth, also having traveled from afar. Imagine the smell when they arrived? While some of their gifts were likely pleasant in odor, I think I would rather have stood next to any sheep who happened to be there than the wise men. Even Joseph, for who knows how long he’d been near the feeding trough. Let’s be honest. Barnyard animals don’t smell that great.
But here’s the thing. They all came as they were to see their King. As we make final preparations for Christmas, my prayer through this advent has been that we don’t get lost in making ourselves and our world so decorated and wrapped and covered nicely that we forget to come before our God, just as we are.
This Christmas, may we come as we are. Pain and all. May we just come and worship our King.
God knows who we are and what is stirring deep within us, beneath the glow of our commercialized Christmas. In fact, he knows us so well that this precious baby Jesus was sent to take on our sins and offer us the free gift of eternal life by sacrificing himself (perfection on earth) so that we may have life and have it to the full.
Later in Jesus’ ministry, he tells his disciples, “let the children come” and to his followers they should have faith like a child. He wants us to just come. My daughter, Avery, often comes to me with snot running down her face, tears in her eyes. She just comes.The thing I’m learning and the hope I’ve found in all the pain I’ve experienced in 2011 is that this is not for me to restore or fix. I certainly should ask for less suffering for the children we serve, but my heart yearning should really be to open myself to more God. We should pray for more God, both directly from Him and His use of us to be salt & light for our hurting world.
At Forgotten Voices we have an opportunity to help children today, children who don’t have the luxury of pretending things in their lives are fine. Their worlds have crashed down around them. Men and women in their communities, through theologically-sound local churches, know who these children are and what they need. The children are coming, just as they are to the footsteps of the church, expecting to be helped. Churches help orphans, for there is often no where else for them to go. Consider offering them a gift of a place to be, a hope to be found in their darkness. In doing so I believe you may discover hope of your own, as you watch God do more when you feel like you can do no more yourself.
Merry Christmas.
-Ryan Keith, President
Tags: advent, AIDS, forgotten voices, orphans, Ryan Keith, Zambia, Zimbabwe
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