Marathon Time!

Yep, it’s true - I’m running the Napa Valley half-marathon on March 24th. And I gotta tell you, I’m stoked! I am LOVING training right now (my last long run was 10 miles and this week it will be 11). I love the God-time I get as I run: time to pray, memorize scripture, and worship. It’s becoming one of my favorite parts of the day. And I love learning perseverance - persevering through discomfort and pain, finding my strength in God when I want to quit. That inner strength of will, and the ability to persevere no matter how tough the journey gets, are character qualities that I really want to develop now and take with me wherever God calls me to live and serve throughout the world.
I’m also running for the people of D.R. Congo. Three other friends and I are praying to raise $8,000 to purchase a piece of land in the Keredi slum where ELI is ministering. We currently have a school providing education, food, and the love of God to over 500 children, many of whom are orphans. The school is already a bright light of hope in a war-torn area but we have a great need to expand it.
We are praying for more land for two reasons. First, we want to build three more classrooms. Currently we only have facilities for grades 1st-6th to meet in the morning, and the older kids meet in the afternoon. Secondly, we dream of setting up a pharmacy/emergency medical clinic/Aids awareness center on the property. Currently, there is no medical care in the entire area and many of our children are falling over in class from malaria and other illnesses. The teachers have no medicine to give them and some families are desperately buying “medicine” off the street which is only making the sicknesses worse.
I would love to invite you to sponsor me as I run to buy this land and provide education and medical care to the children of D.R. Congo! Also, let me know if you are interested in running your own 1/2 or full marathon to join us in our fundraising efforts. We would love to have you join the team of runners! Go to http://empoweringlives.org/run.shtml to read more.

Speaking up for the children in the "hallway" of Sudan

"David, we love you as we love the Lord,” 200 high schoolers chanted at the chapel where I was speaking. I had them say it again as I challenged them to look at his picture on the screen and to see Jesus in his face. “David, we love you as we love the Lord!” I shared some of the lessons from my summer: learning to see Jesus in the face of each person I passed, and then learning to respond to them the way I would respond to Jesus. I pray that as these students now raise money to help us feed, educate, and care for our orphans in Sudan, that they will truly give as if Jesus Himself was in need. For one day I know they will hear Him say, “Thank you Beloved. I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I needed text books, and you sacrificed so I could learn to read. For whatever you did for David, you did for me. Welcome to my Father’s Kingdom.”

An Empty Table

An empty table - that's what I saw as I went to the eating area to pick up my lunch at the Short Term Missions conference I was attending. They were providing sack lunches for everyone, but by the time I made my way to the hallway, all that greeted me was a long empty table. No more lunches. "Sorry," the hotel worker told me, "we're all out of lunches. There's nothing we can do." It was a new experience for me. I was going to go hungry the rest of the conference until dinner. There was nowhere else for me to get food. In frustration, I looked into the cafeteria where everyone else from the conference was happily eating their lunches as they talked and laughed. It wasn't fair. Why did they get lunch and I didn't? I paid for the conference just like they did. Shouldn't I get to eat too? But lucky for me, one lady happened to be out in the hallway where I was standing at the empty table. She saw that I didn't get a lunch and graciously offered to share hers’ with me. She gave me half of her sandwich and her bottle of water. I gratefully accepted it and thanked God for providing.
As I sat and ate my half sandwich alone in another room, I began to pray through the experience. Is this what the rest of the world feels like who don't get food today? (And not just today, but every day?) By no fault of their own, they arrive to an empty table every day while getting glimpses of happy crowds eating their lunches in the room next door. But when they look at the crowds next door (us here in the States), they don't just see us with one sack lunch each. No, we sit around our tables with 500 sack lunches piled on the table in front of us. The reality of that hit me so hard. How can I sit comfortably in the cafeteria with 500 extra lunches on my table when there are people in the hallway longing for just half a sandwich? The main reason the lady shared her lunch with me was because she came out into the hallway where I was. She saw me in my situation and was moved with compassion to sacrifice so that I could eat a little also. The whole experience fueled my passion even more to bring teams and people into that "hallway". Yes, I can go into the cafeteria and announce to everyone, “There are people outside who didn't get lunch. Would anyone be willing to share with them?” But how much more powerful and effective to bring people into the hallway to meet those hungry people face to face? I want to continue to do both: to bring others into the hallway, and to announce the situation in the cafeteria to all those eating contentedly with no knowledge or concern for the people outside. O Lord, thank you so much for this job where I get to do just that! Use me God. Let me be a voice for your hungry children in the “hallways” of the world.