Matthew 19:16-22
And behold, one came up to him, saying, "Teacher, what good deed must I do, to have eternal life?" And he said to him, "Why do you ask me about what is good? One there is who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments." He said to him, "Which?" And Jesus said, "You shall not kill, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself." The young man said to him, "All these I have observed; what do I still lack?" Jesus said to him, "If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me." When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions.
This is a parable about the rich man in Jesus. Although we may not think of ourselves as rich, when we compare ourselves to the people in Haiti, we are some of the richest people on the planet. Many times in the Bible, Jesus tells his followers and listeners to give to the poor or that the poor are better off spiritually than the rich, as he does here. We are bound by the Bible to help the people in Haiti, even if it means selling away half our possessions.
After we discussed this passage from the Bible, we started talking about spiritual gifts, which was one of the scriptures from our church service. Everyone has a gift, but most people don't realize what their gift is until later on in life. We're teenagers, so none of us really know what we want to do or be in the future. As we talked among ourselves, though, it became somewhat clear that the person who recognized their respective gift(s) the least was the actual person; in other words, everybody else would be telling you your gift before you thought of it.
Eventually, we pulled ourselves back towards our verses about Jesus and how the "many that are first will be last, and the last first (Matthew 19:30)." We ended up jumping around through all sorts of different verses in the Bible, though. Through all of our verse jumps, one of us made a remark regarding the parable of the prodical son. When people were getting pulled out of the rubble in Haiti, most people stalled on the thought of how many others were not saved. Instead, we should be joyful like the father of the prodical son and think along the lines of "woo-hoo; we saved one more!" Every life saved, whether spiritually or physically, is important to God, and we should rejoice whenever a life is saved.
At a local church camp, we hold Emmaus and Chyrsillis walks as spiritual retreats. At these retreats, according to some of our youth who have been on these walks, the leaders invoke the image of a stool to support you with three legs: faith, action, and study. Some people may feel more comfortable with one leg over another or the others, but all of the legs need to be there for a stable support. Most people are most comfortable with faith and study over action; this has led to many criticisms of Christians in that we do not live up to our faith, which is probably true for the most part. We need to live and do more for our community and others across the globe, such as in Haiti.
To be better Christians, we need to be more active, not solely rely on faith and study to get us through. What better an opportunity to help than in Haiti? The disaster in Haiti is horrible, but it opens up hundreds of thousands of opportunities to be active and become better Christians. Every person has to take a different path to God, and sometimes it can take a crisis like Haiti to show the right path.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Have a Heart for Haiti
Haiti is in trouble; deep trouble. There have been estimates of up to 200,000 deaths due to the earthquake, although it could rise if the situation gets any worse. Today, we're discussing the situation, how it could be better, and what we should do to help the Haitians out during this crisis.
The first thing we started to discuss was the thievery. When disaster like this strikes, most people will be forced to steal for survival. In Haiti, people are invading the homes of the dead to get vital resources. For the most part, we here thought that this was okay; resources are scarce, and it's not as if they're stealing for profit or luxury.
The second topic that came up was immigration. The US is not far away from Haiti, and it is to be expected that many refugees will travel from Haiti to the US. Thankfully, the government is allowing refugees for the time being, and we're thankful that anyone able to get out of Haiti will be allowed to go somewhere. One of us commented that a great many Americans, at this point, would probably open their homes up to the Haitians in their time of great need.
Already, there are many relief efforts and missions traveling to Haiti, including a lot of churches. At this point, the problem is not necessarily a lack of resources, but rather a lack of transportation to get resources to everyone who needs them. Nevertheless, Haiti will need a lot of resources to get back on track, so it's hard to say when enough is going to be enough.
Our church, like many others, is making health kits to send down to Haiti. Our church is hoping for only around a hundred, but if thousands of churches across the globe make a hundred kits apiece, then hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti can get help and relief.
We got into a small debate over whether money would be of more assistance than resources. Referring directly to Haiti, money is relatively useless. We did determine, however, that money sent to relief organizations would help just as much, if not more, than actual resources, as the organizations would then be able to buy the resources that Haiti needs.
One of our teachers is a carpenter/builder and has developed a sort of puzzle structure. We used a similar design from him for Relay for Life, and it's a nice building; we used it without two of the sides up, and it was still an excellent protection against the rain. It's a 10x16ft structure and is ideal for quick and portable relief homes. He hopes to send some of them down to Haiti, which would house some of the now homeless Haitians.
If we can organize it, we hope to send an international mission trip to Haiti with our youth group. We would have to go with a larger group, but there is still a question of safety. One of the reasons that Haiti is in such a bad shape is that it has no real functional government; Haiti has been run basically by the UN for the past few years. Only one other country in the world is in a similar position of no government, but it is without UN assistance. The country? Somali -- home of the infamous pirates that are plaguing the rest of the world, including the US.
The first thing we started to discuss was the thievery. When disaster like this strikes, most people will be forced to steal for survival. In Haiti, people are invading the homes of the dead to get vital resources. For the most part, we here thought that this was okay; resources are scarce, and it's not as if they're stealing for profit or luxury.
The second topic that came up was immigration. The US is not far away from Haiti, and it is to be expected that many refugees will travel from Haiti to the US. Thankfully, the government is allowing refugees for the time being, and we're thankful that anyone able to get out of Haiti will be allowed to go somewhere. One of us commented that a great many Americans, at this point, would probably open their homes up to the Haitians in their time of great need.
Already, there are many relief efforts and missions traveling to Haiti, including a lot of churches. At this point, the problem is not necessarily a lack of resources, but rather a lack of transportation to get resources to everyone who needs them. Nevertheless, Haiti will need a lot of resources to get back on track, so it's hard to say when enough is going to be enough.
Our church, like many others, is making health kits to send down to Haiti. Our church is hoping for only around a hundred, but if thousands of churches across the globe make a hundred kits apiece, then hundreds of thousands of people in Haiti can get help and relief.
We got into a small debate over whether money would be of more assistance than resources. Referring directly to Haiti, money is relatively useless. We did determine, however, that money sent to relief organizations would help just as much, if not more, than actual resources, as the organizations would then be able to buy the resources that Haiti needs.
One of our teachers is a carpenter/builder and has developed a sort of puzzle structure. We used a similar design from him for Relay for Life, and it's a nice building; we used it without two of the sides up, and it was still an excellent protection against the rain. It's a 10x16ft structure and is ideal for quick and portable relief homes. He hopes to send some of them down to Haiti, which would house some of the now homeless Haitians.
If we can organize it, we hope to send an international mission trip to Haiti with our youth group. We would have to go with a larger group, but there is still a question of safety. One of the reasons that Haiti is in such a bad shape is that it has no real functional government; Haiti has been run basically by the UN for the past few years. Only one other country in the world is in a similar position of no government, but it is without UN assistance. The country? Somali -- home of the infamous pirates that are plaguing the rest of the world, including the US.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
