A Call to Action!

At a yard sale last spring, I was drawn to a table piled high with books, hoping to find a Bible to share with a person who might not have one. There wasn’t any hurry—I was planning on staying for several hours to help; so throughout the course of the day, I kept returning to the table and rummaging through the stacks of books.

     

 I never did find the Bible, but another manuscript caught my eye, one which I had wanted to read for a long time. It was a deal for fifty cents! The book was The Hole in the Gospel by Richard Stearns, current director of the World Vision organization..

     

In his book, Rich Stearns shared the stories of people he has met since becoming involved in World Vision: children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic, villages of people suffering from the lack of proper sanitation, clean water and adequate food; and those whose lives have been changed radically through the good news of Jesus Christ.

     

Stearns told how the founder of World Vision, Bob Pierce, traveled around the world leading evangelistic crusades during the 1940’s. On one of his trips, he preached to the children in a Chinese mission school. A young girl named White Jade was beaten by her father and disowned after she accepted Christ at that meeting.

      

Just before Bob Pierce left to return to the United States, the director of the school came to him with the little girl in her arms. She told Bob what had happened and insisted that couldn’t possibly take in one more child, handing White Jade to him.Bob Pierce was stunned.  He gave the director five dollars, which was all that he had in his pocket, and asked her to take care of the child until he could send more. When he got home, he began raising money to support White Jade. Later, in 1953, after a heartbreaking encounter with multitudes of children orphaned from the Korean War, Pierce started the World Vision organization to provide sponsors for many them.  

     

So what is the “hole” in the Gospel that Rich Stearns referred to in the title of his book? It is failing to heed the call to help the poor and oppressed, ignoring the widespread suffering around the world and turning our backs on those who are sick, starving, persecuted and without hope. When we share the good news of Jesus and at the same time help people with love and compassion, we are communicating the “whole” gospel to them.

     

Pierce’s daily prayer was: “Let my heart be broken by the things which break the heart of God.” It is easy to become insensitive to the needs of people in the developing countries around the world. Only when there is a crisis, like the earthquake in Haiti a few years ago, do we stop and think about the suffering so many people endure throughout their lives…people just like you and me, who happened to be born into poverty.

     

 I talked with one young fellow recently who told me that he cried when he learned that a family in one village in the Philippines lived on about forty-five dollars a month. “I spend that much for a meal at a nice restaurant,” he said with emotion in his voice.   

     

Another friend shared about her experience aboard a Mercy Ship, providing medical aid to African women. The love which was shown them made them ask, “Why would someone do this for us?” God’s love became real to many of these women through people who were willing to become the hands and feet of Jesus.

 Lord, help us all!

    

 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loosen the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” Isaiah 58:6-7 NIV

Published in the Porterville Recorder 7/20/13