The Phil Files

The wise one said it powerfully and clearly:

Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God (Proverbs 14:31 TNIV).

A photo from a recent trip to Africa called to mind this passage. The color, shadowing, and sunlight called me to this message. But this image is more than that for me. I can still remember the smell of that moment … the smell of the fish being cleaned about fifteen feet to the left of this picture, the smell of the morning cooking smoke still hanging in the air, the smell of human waste barely detectable in the breeze, and the aroma of baby spit up smelling like moldy soy. I also remember the emotional smells: a faint aroma of hope celebrating the intervention of Compassion into the lives of a twenty-two year old married HIV positive woman of with two young children and the clean, prepared, and loving tenderness of the project worker who shared scripture and love, as well as her expertise on health and nutrition, with this family a world away from where I live.

Now if I can just live to honor God in this … I so want to be a person of honor, who honors, the LORD who has been so gracious with me, by being a real, tangible, fragrantly pleasing aroma of Christ (2 Corinthians 2:15). To bet a part of culture change, as Randy’s Watercooler Wednesday suggests, I’ve got to keep all the odors as images in my heart and then act personally.

While I like the Scripture graphic (aka PowerPoint background) with the text, of the three related images, I like the one without any text or title most of all. All three — the Bible text, the title, and the plain image — can be downloaded free from Heartlight.org. Check on the latest images, or use the search for color, Bible reference, or key theme. Here’s a small version of the real image:

 

Well, it’s way too late to be posting this. I should have done it much earlier today, but then we all know how plans some days. But since I have to take one of my last anti-malarial pills tonight, I was going to at least enjoy the precious memories of the recent Uganda trip with Compassion International to encourage people to sponsor a child.

God blessed all of us on this trip in so many ways. We had safe travel with few connection difficulties and little or no luggage problems. Health problems were pretty minimal, as well. Remarkably, God took a bunch of very different people and poured us together and blended us into a remarkable cocktail of grace. I personally treasure the folks with whom I spent this time and consider meeting them a great gift.

One of those remarkable people we all met was not a blogger when we arrived in Uganda– but he does now blog regularly and I encourage you to check out his message. In fact, he didn’t travel to Uganda with us. He was waiting for us at the Entebbe airport, and from that first meeting till the end of the trip, he made sure every detail of our time there was well utilized and enhanced. He covered our tardiness, helped make new plans on the fly, and arranged every facet of our time down the most precise detail. (If you have never led an international trip like this with so many different kinds of people, then you will only have to imagine how incredible his work proved to be!)

Dennis is a precious soul, whose soft and mellow voice is deep and rich, but full of passion and emotion. Dennis has a broad smile and a great laugh. Spend some time in conversation with him and you will find out that he has at least three great passions: 1) Jesus; 2) children; and 3) statistics. Dennis’ recent post on malaria as a sniper in Uganda gives you a taste of each of these three interests. He knows Scripture, the country of Uganda, and the issues at stake in the lives of the children we came to see.

One of my favorite pictures of Dennis shows him in the doorway almost portrayed in silhouette, with happy children in the background. I will carry this image of Dennis with me, because I see him as one standing near the door of hope for many children in Uganda. Most of those blessed by his efforts will never know him personally, because he is not going to call attention to himself, but their lives will be forever blessed.

While I know Dennis was sad in many ways to say goodbye to us and put us on a plane back home, I also know he was worn out and needed a break by the time we left. We can’t thank you enough, Dennis, for the great job you and the folks from Compassion in Uganda did. We will not forget you.

I ask all who read this to please pray for Dennis and the Ugandan team. Pray for peace for this country so surrounded by tribal strife on a continent that is dangerously “twitchy” with religious conflict. And most of all, if you have not prayerfully decided to sponsor a child, the greatest blessing you could give to these committed and dedicated servants of children is to prayerfully decide to sponsor a child, today — just click on this link and it will take you to the page to sponsor a child from Uganda.

If you would like to know a little more about Dennis and the children he loves, take a minute or two and enjoy the slide show below.

 

“What in the world is a BooMama?” I asked my wife, Donna, as tears of laughter streamed down her cheeks.

“Oh, she’s someone who blogs and is hilarious. All the girls I know read her. Denise turned me on to her because she’s a southern girl, too.”

Well, BooMama tries to explain what a BooMama is, but to be honest, the person, otherwise named Sophie, far outstripped any word-limited description. She is Southern Belle meets Southern Fried Chicken, with a sarcastic whit and a deep love for children, her family, and the Lord.

I was blessed to go on a blogging trip to Uganda with Compassion International — find out more by clicking the Uganda with Compassion tab above. Among the 15 or 16 very talented folks who came along was BooMama — I often had to pinch myself to see if I was really blessed to be along with this group: I think I was included as the token old geezer, blogging talent certainly didn’t get me in, that’s for sure! Not only did BooMama add spice, charm, humor, and an outstandingly delicious Southern drawwwwl, she was a mama blogger personified. She was great with kids and translated that love for children to her readers, many of whom sponsored a child.

Last night, after playing a week of catch up on sleep, work, writing, sermons, visits … I was sitting in the TV room watching my daughter laugh as she stared at her laptop. “You must have had quite a time with someone as sarcastically hilarious as BooMama!” Megan said. Yes, I’m in a house with two BooMama fans, but Donna has gone to BooMama land to speak with The Coffee Group on a ladies retreat at the Homewood Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

We then proceeded to laugh together as we read two of Sophie’s recent posts, Our Great Big Wilderness Adventure and My Afternoon Outside in Nature. I especially appreciated the latter, since I had gotten her to pause to show me her Southern Belle rock climbing shoes, pictured to the left — yes, I know they are Crocs, what did you expect?

While you can’t know the meaning of all of the pictures below, this is a little video summary of BooMama from my vantage point. What tells the whole story for me, however, is not something funny or crazy or Southern. When most of the group got to meet their sponsored child, I had already had an in home visit with our sponsored little girl. Having a big BooMama heart, Sophie made sure that her the little boy sponsored by her brother’s family was included in the lunch. So she made time for “Little D” and then shared him with me while she held, cradled, cuddled, and loved on her family’s little girl. Many of the pictures of Sophie and this little girl were actually taken by “Little D” who loved using my camera. Sophie’s little girl didn’t say a word until “goodbye,” but snuggled up and shared the love only a BooMama can give.

 


 

Today was a full day in Kampala, Uganda. We visited with the Compassion staff at their headquarters here, and then drove outside of town on a very bumpy road to go to one of their children centers. In many ways, this was a brief taste of heaven while we dealt with the very real and fallen realities of our fractured world. As I write in my Heartlight.org article today, in many ways it was a little taste of heaven.

The mothers and children were waiting for us when we arrived. They children were dressed in their nice clothes and greeted us warmly. Several of the youngest children rushed to greet us and wanted to be hugged and held by the “muzungo” visitors. (Muzungo is a term for European or white people.)

The openness and warmth of these children was captivating and lasted every second we were with them. It wasn’t that they craved attention or demanded something of us. In fact, they were extraordinarily well behaved! They were just full of love for us, and especially the people we were with who had come to see them regularly to help with their care and health. This is quite a dramatic change in their behavior with the good new health and social skills they have learned with the CSP (Child Survival Program). Several years ago, this same age group of children had been malnourished and very shy. The intervention of the CSP personnel and their close work with the mothers and children had a huge impact on everything they were now doing.

The CSP was the program that was so vital in helping Doreen, our sponsored child I talked about in Heartlight yesterday. They work with moms before their child is born and offer pre-natal, baby, and early childhood training in nutrition, spiritual values, immunization, and other services. We made home visits — the most powerful part of this trip each day for all of us, even though playing and spending time with the kids is more fun. Our group visited with a 23 year old mother of two. She is married and is HIV positive. We learned the infection rate is 6.7 per year. That’s new cases each year, so the number in the general population infected is very high. The mom asked us to pray for her healing. She also wanted us to pray that her children could be healthy and that her relationship with her husband be strong. While her home was very small, it was clean and neat as it could be. Her five month old daughter was absolutely precious and it was clear the CSP help had brought great reward to this little child. We later saw the group doing projects for which they could earn money.

After a time of music and celebration, we finished with a time of playing with the kids and enjoying each others company. It was very difficult to leave because of the love that flowed among us all!

After the overwhelming emotions of yesterday, today was good, fun, sobering, and hopeful. We can make a huge difference in the lives of children … one child at a time … all it takes is a little over a dollar a day a heart full of Compassion.

You know if a culture values human life by the way it treats its children. That’s why Mother Teresa responded to a Newsweek Magazine question many years ago the way she did. She was asked what she thought about abortion in America. Her response was something close to this: “When a society kills its own children, what is there left to say?”

Jesus makes clear in Luke 18 that He not only loves children, but that he will also hold accountable those who keep them from Him or cause them to stumble. In addition, Luke has emphasized strongly the way Jesus wants us treat children and the poor for the last three chapters, Luke 16-18. So often, poverty keeps children from having a chance at anything … a healthy life, opportunity to thrive and succeed, and most of all, to find Jesus and a world-wide family of grace.

I had not expected or anticipated the powerful message of these chapters to coincide with my preparation to go to Uganda and my families’ opportunity to write the two children we support monthly through Compassion, Doreen and Estarlin (both pictured in the blog). God has a way of both confronting and confirming His call to us and I see this happening to me in these chapters. I hope you will be in prayer about what God is showing you in Luke 16-18, too.

//Inspiration: Luke 18:16
Then Jesus called for the children and said to the disciples, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children.”

//Incarnation:
I must hear the call of Jesus to me and not wait for others to recognize His voice, for He may be calling them to some other act of kindness to the poor and the childre. But this I know, I must be faithful to His call on my heart!

//Invitation:
O Lord Jesus, please help me see how can help with the many who are wanting to know you, but don’t yet know it and may never have the chance because of their circumstances. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Well, back to my devotional post I had to postpone because I fell asleep. My devotional reading Saturday was from Luke 14. Twice, Jesus mentions four groups of people often overlooked in life and in religion — the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind (vs. 13 & 21).

This forgotten set of four caught my attention for several reasons. First, I was preaching from John 5 and the story of the paralyzed man that Jesus healed at the pool of Bethesda. Second, I have been preparing to go a trip to Uganda to work with those who are often the most forgotten — children of poverty and AIDS orphans.

Jesus’ two points in regard to these struck me powerfully.

First, it is easy for us invite our friends and family into our lives, but to be like Jesus, we must invite those who cannot repay us! Of course, my passion is for children. I serve on a board for Christian Homes and Family Services, trying to help children, birth moms, and adoptive parents find a future. In addition, Donna and I have been involved with supporting a child with Compassion International for several years.

Jesus’ second reference to these forgotten four had to do with the “normal religious folks” being too distracted with the things of life to be ready to accept God’s invitation to a party, so God made sure the forgotten four weren’t forgotten!

One of these references is a challenge and the other is a warning. so what will I do with them? And what will you do with them?

//Inspiration: Luke 14:13-14
But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

//Incarnation:
I think the real challenge for me is to not just care for those forgotten from a distance, but also those around me everyday. I know that I can easily begin to not notice those who I see regularly. I know that my human nature makes me wary of messy entanglements. So I’ve got to hear Jesus and follow Jesus into the service of His precious, but often forgotten creations.

//Invitation:

O Lord Jesus, please help me see people as you do. O Father God, stir in me a compassion that values each person as someone you know, love, and made for a purpose. O Holy Spirit, empower me to care when others around refuse to even notice, the forgotten around me. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.