Serving others can be costly

" I do it all for the sake of the gospel." - I Corinthians 9:23

Sunday, August 8, 2010
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

The Meserete Kristos Church in Ethiopia is the largest body of Mennonites in the world. Years ago, when the former govenment restricted the Christian church, the church went underground and grew by leaps and bounds. Now, the government is more open and the church continues to grow.

Sunday morning, I visited the largest Meserete Kristos church in Addis Ababa with about 50 others who were in the city for a service consultation. Arli Klassen, Mennonite Central Committee executive director, shared with the congregation of 2,000 that MCC service worker in Afghanistan Glen Lapp had been killed along with others who worked for International Assistance Missions (AIM).

Even though we can't see, we have hope, the preacher told the congregation. Glen's faith in God gave him the courage to sacrifice himself for others. Faith is not denying things, the pastor told us, it is about believing that God can change things.

The preacher's words were sobering to the Mennonite and Brethren in Christ leaders who had gathered in Addis Ababa for a service consultation to talk about how we can better serve the church and serve the world. Service is not just a concept, it's the way we are called to live.

Glen Lapp's death is a reminder to all of us that following Christ, serving others, can be costly. But that is what we are called to do. God can change things, in that we have hope, and we are called to serve.

In one of his last reports to MCC about his work in Afghanistan, Glen said that his hope was that he could treat people with respect and with love and try to be a little bit of Christ in this part of the world. In his life and in his death Glen demonstrated his love for others.

May our worship please you, the choir sang on Sunday morning. "Your mercy is so big and your love draws us to you," the choir sang.

Later in the church service, an elder told us that we owe God everything. Glen Lapp showed us that sometimes that includes our lives. Glen's death gave meaning to the banner which hung above the sanctuary on this Sunday morning - "I do it all for the sake of the gospel."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

They welcomed us

Image
One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see. (John 9:25) She was addicted to drugs for 20 years. She was in prison and her family broke apart. Her child was in an orphanage and her husband died. Because of her substance abuse, she eventually lost her one arm below her elbow. She saw no way out. She had hit the very bottom. When she came to know God, Natalia says everything changed. She found she had a deep desire to help people like herself and she discovered that her life experiences helped her understand others. “I remember what God did in my life and I have hope that God can touch other peoples’ lives and give them new life, too,” Natalia tells me. In Nikopol, Ukraine, she and Olga and Valodya, both of whom have similar stories to tell of their own, began New Life Charitable Fund a half dozen years ago to help people in prison, or who have drug or alcohol addictions, are HIV positive, homeless or for some other reason need a helping hand. Ukraine has ...
Read more

God multiplies our efforts

Image
Sister Zita at the La Posada shelter with baby Emmanuel and members of our border learning tour. Photo courtesy of Janae Rempel The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail. – I Kings 17:14 Ana Hinojosa remembers growing up on the Texas-Mexico border near Brownsville in the late 80s. Her family’s house was a mile from the border wall and she remembers the extended family gatherings in her back yard. Ana, an MCC immigration staff person, says border patrol agents would rest in the shade of the trees near the front of her house and, in the same day, it would be possible for a family from Mexico to knock on her front door to ask for food or directions. Her family turned no one away. Life on the border can look quite different today. When we enter the Catholic Charities respite center in McAllen, Texas, it is startling to see the contrast from the serenity of the neighborhood outside to the chaos inside. Cesar Matta tells us that, today, the cente...
Read more

A river of love

Image
For it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks. – Matthew 25:40 “We are happy you are here to see this with your own eyes,” the leader of the Islamic Charities organization in Deir Attieh, Syria tells us, a group of MCC people visiting partner organizations in Syria. “We can’t express enough our heartfelt thanks to you.” Islamic Charities works with 3,000 at risk families affected by the war in the region and relies heavily on the work of volunteers. MCC provides food boxes to Islamic Charities as part of our humanitarian assistance in Syria. When I visit five families who received these food boxes, I recall the heartfelt thanks but feel mostly heart broken.    We visit two families living in a partially constructed apartment complex that stalled when the war began. The first family lives in a small two-room apartment, the mother and her five children and the woman’s father. Her husband is serving in the army. The second family inclu...
Read more