Love, Where is Your Fire?

Yesterday night a friend came over and gave me 2 pictures Soph has made for me and a few videos of her and Steffi and Mama Lois, Mama Eyotia and Florence. He went to Uganda with Watoto in November and had taken a few hours out of their busy schedule to hop a coaster over to Jinja and take a giant suitcase packed full of stuff for Mama Lois for me.

We got to talking about Uganda and missions and I saw a lot of myself in him. He's fresh from Uganda, with that high that comes from Africa, that feeling like you've glimpsed something incredible and need to tell the world about it. I love that feeling. But i think what i feel now is much more sustainable. I love Uganda. I love it like it was own country. I love it because it bore my hopes and dreams for my future and it was the place where our Lord took my faith, crushed it , and rebuilt it from the ground up and from the ashes the older, wiser, more faithful Amy arose. I was set in the kiln in Uganda but it is here in Canada that i'm being refined in that fire.

As we sat talking and i could see his passion for UG glowing, i was so cautious with what i said. I agreed with a lot of what he said but there were some things i just couldn't anymore. I was in his position once where only Africa matters anymore and i thought God placed this very specific call on my life. But I believe missions/service/calls, whatever you want to label it, must go beyond borders. The Lord has not called me to Africa. He's called me to SERVE. And if i'm not doing that right here at 'home', then i'm not living my call, and i'm missing out on great service experience here and i'm cutting my own self short.

As Christians we are so content with writing a check and watching the video montage of those adorable babies, or the time lapse video of the school/church/home being built. But when it comes to putting on the gloves, picking up the hammer/bottle we pause. There's work. There's my retirement fund. There's that BMV we really need. There's someone else to do it.

We're lazy people. We like others to do the work but give a little someone to feel like we've contributed. And i'm definitely not saying that the people who write checks and work hard to be able to write those checks are bad or wrong. They are needed and fulfilling a need with what God's blessed them with. Which is good.

But we need to find our Africa, India, Mexico, Haiti, Brazil etc and bring it here. We need to use that fire and that passion and that feeling and use it serve out own North America that is dead spiritually and bring it back to life. We need to heal the sick, bring hope to the broken hearted, provide for the poor and the widow and the orphan HERE. I believe Jesus would be disappointed in me if i lived for the day i could return to 'missions' and ignored the 35 million who needed Him right in my back yard.

My friend said that African's have faith, and that their faith comes somewhat easily because its all they have. I say not true. Some may have little, but some have plenty and their faith is the same as the destitute. I say faith is something that requires 'work'. You can't just leave JC out of your life, only let him in when its convenient or easy or you need help. The mentality is whats different between us and them. We don't rely on Jesus for our meal. We don't rely on the Holy Spirit to heal our disease. We have things and systems in place to do that for us. Does that mean our faith should come easier or harder?

Not necessarily. it should just be. A relationship with Christ needs faith. The amount of money you have shouldn't effect us that much. If it does, then we're giving those with millions and no faith a scape goat of sorts.

The hands and feet of Jesus don't recognize arbitrary lines we've drawn for ourselves over land masses.




some tell me to be temperate but luke warm will never do.