“...for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”
-Philippians 4:11-13
May I suggest to you today that mission work many times does more good for the one helping than the one being helped?
It was the week of the Haitian Earthquake 2010, I could not give money online any longer nor accept the awful site of crying children and people in distress. These were my people and I had no choice but to help. God opened an amazing door of opportunity and an outrageous ticket purchase and a few days later I was in the thick of post-disaster Port-au-Prince: U.N Troops, rocky road trips and hospital work, all with the sun unabashedly bearing down on me.
I was no holy saint or selfless hero, just a dirty and sweaty man that had the privilege of building tents to house the injured, distribute water to thirsty young mothers, encourage a few people on the way to amputation and supervise small construction and demolition projects. But when I look back, it seemed that it might as well have been me on that stretcher instead, for those I was sent to help helped me. Their faith emboldened me as their perseverance in preaching the gospel had gone unhindered and their children's laughter brought joy to my heart, all in a place of truest beauty one could ever find, regardless of apocalyptic media reports.
As I rode with my companions, crossing the border in an SUV as physically beat-up as I had become by our trip's end — I saw it. A secret oasis the country had hidden to all but a chosen few. Lush hillsides of palm tree green I am sure extended indefinitely; pools of the whitest uninhabited waters that coruscated with more brilliance than a looking glass in which I saw my future.
I was an old man, Moses beard accompanying, faithfully keeping up a home for neglected children in the green of the hills with my (yet-to-be-known) future wife. We would build a schoolhouse and train the children in maintenance of the land, along with the typical tenets of reading, writing and (a)rithmetic. We would not live under the hand of modern industry but be a free people rid of all superfluous appurtenances disguised as life's necessities. God, sun, love, water, purpose, light, grain and shade were all we really needed — somewhat like plants save the occasional taste for meat. In my heart I was given to precatory pray without uttering a word: “Lord, this is where I want to die.”
I was told the place was named La Gran Bourik, it is not found on any internet search, I am afraid, or written down in many places, if at all, but my friends I have seen it and it rests inside my heart, where it ages not a single day but sits frozen in the same resplendence of that afternoon's daydream.
In our hearts and minds is a place that no currency can ever console and no status will ever stimulate, it is where God lives or at least wants to. And where the Son of God, Jesus Christ wishes to re-purpose and remind you of what is truly important in all circumstances
Life is not always simple and I unfortunately returned to my typical metropolitan living after that day, but the vision never died, it only gets stronger. A vision of a place often read of in Sunday schools.
I have seen it and it rests inside my heart.
In Him,
Jean-Marc
