 |
| Monday, June 11, 2007
What Do You See? By Hannah TeohSometimes, I need to be confronted with the reality of God - His love and His bigness. I wrestle a lot with questions like, 'I know that God cares about me, but doesn't He care about _____ (brokenness/poverty/injustice/abuse/etc)?' All this gets me in a bind more often than I care to admit: I think that what I read in the newspapers and see on the news is a contradiction to what I profess to believe about redemption and beauty and a God who won't ever stop loving. The conundrum raged in my mind until a point when I shoved it away indefinitely. Near the end of 2006, I went to West Kalimantan, on the Indonesian island of Borneo, with a bunch of friends. There we met Ronny Heyboer and his little village of rescued children. God has given him a heart to rescue abandoned children, house them, school them and point them to Jesus. He is committed to buying a huge property and plans to build more dormitories and school facilities on it so that the project can house more children. ***  Ronny takes us on a tour of the property and brings us to this wide-open space that has been leveled from six metres of hill. There, he stops and asks some of the children, 'What do you see here?' The kids squint and peer. 'Trees, jungle,' they say. 'No,' he replies. 'I see a praise and worship centre that can seat 2500. This is the place where the tribes will unite in worship - right here in the middle of the jungle, 10 hours' drive from the nearest city. Worship will spring from the remotest part of the globe.' Ronny has no 5-year or 25-year plan. The construction starts now, whether or not the team have enough to cover caring for the kids and the building work, on the monthly financial support they receive. Add to the growing number of children needing to be rescued, the costs are mounting. *** Listening to Ronny's words, I thought, 'Gosh, God's so busy doing something, even in the places I don't see on the map or hear about.' Just when that thought crossed my mind, I heard a voice. A gentle, matter-of-fact kind of voice, almost teasing. He said, 'And you asked Me what I was doing in this world.' Then I quickly turned and walked a distance away from the group because I couldn't stop tearing.
|
| PREVIOUS ARTICLES seeing for Hammie Adonai lamentations anchor Words You Are For Me i had forgotten melancholy What You Wanted All Along < back to Journalogue's newest posting
|
| | | ||
|
|
 |
 |