Last week the outreach team went to the Casa de la Nueva Vida orphange. Their hope was to be a blessing in some way to the children. The team fed the kids lunch, played games, did crafts, talked about the Lord Jesus, sang praise and worship songs with beautiful instruments, had a birthday cake for one of the girls, did some maintenance projects around the grounds (with the kids), etc. What a blast! There were smiles everywhere with laughter and joy filling the place.
But the most amazing thing to me was when the team prayed for the kids. Each family from the outreach team prayed for a handful of kids from the orphanage. In one family, the dad sat cross-legged with an orphan boy of seven or eight on his lap. As they prayed, the boy wept openly. Even though the boy speaks only Spanish and the dad was praying in English, it powerfully affected the boy, seeming to bless his heart deeply. There were tears of pain certainly, but also tears of joy as this family gave him longed-for, tender affection that overwhelmed him.
Is this true ministry? The boy has myriad physical needs and the ultimate need for the Savior. How does this short time address any of those glaring needs? It is the philosophy of IFM that we cannot react to the needs that we see. There are so many needs around us all the time that to do so would consume us completely; and there would still be needs. Instead, we must be sensitive to His leading and walk in what He is doing in a particular situation. Clearly the boy does not need to sit perpetually in someone's lap and weep perpetually, nor does he need to do it repeatedly. But for that one moment, in that situation, on that day, God blessed that boy with a tangible and overwhelming picture of the Father's love for him. The next day, when the team took the orphans to a park in Juarez, the same boy ran into the arms of the dad from the team--full of laughs and smiles--and we all played games and sports together as one extended family in the Lord.
James 1:27 says, “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.“
--Thaine