earlier this week my sweet friend Juli wrote this,
"There is an African proverb that says:
“When you pray, move your feet.”
While there is immense value to listening and being still in prayer and seasons when waiting is what is being asked of us; as this proverb infers, prayer also involves response and action.
It is much like love.
Love is more than words spoken from our mouths.
It must be lived out in the patterns and actions of our lives.
When we love, broken things of this world are restored and made new..."
Kev and I have cried out to Abba,
asking that our dearest neighbors come to know Love itself.
the grace, and redemption, and freedom Christ brings.
but our cries should not echo in the emptiness of their words.
no,
let us move our feet, yes
and allow God to fold us into our own prayers.
our prayers that sweet precious children in our neighborhood, whom we have come to adore and treat as our own, would know Jesus and experience his love.
so we become the church.
we are inadequate, yes, but we are empowered.
we let the spirit move,
and soon we are ok to sing off-key, and wear crazy hair, and play with water balloons, and LOVE.
and that is what we did.
last week our sweet life group/volunteers came for 2 hours each night, and we hosted 30 kids at our home for VBS. It was the Big God Story, in action.
ninos we'd never met, heard us singing and playing games, and drifted towards our apartment,
"can we come?"their sweet eyes pleaded.
YES, for there is always room for more in God's kingdom.
every night more kids, because the Spirit is contagious.
they came early, they stayed late.
they made us laugh, and wore us out.
the very last day we invited all the parents to a BBQ.
a lot happened that night, and most I probably won't recall,
but this, oh yes, this I will never forget:
she stood there, we smiled.
"thank you for teaching my children about God. I want to, but i am always so busy"
I nod, and smile and tell her how much I loved her kids, and what great things they had to contribute during small group.
"i am from mexico" she continues
"but i've lived here for 17 years,
i've always felt that americans, they looked down on me, that i am not good enough.
but you, you all changed that this week. you loved my kids."
i almost choked. tears.
i smiled at her, took a breath and said what my heart believes more than anything,
"we are all brothers in sisters in Christ, and THAT is more important than anything else. we are family. more important than our skin color is our identity in Christ, and that trumps all".
and that week, it did.
Christ is it.
He's all.
and so our prayers were answered.
LOVE came.
and trumped all.
and so we continue to press in.
we feel tired, and pretty inadequate, but when we pray
God MOVES
and often, his movement involves us.
so, as we pray, let's also move our feet.
enjoy these sweet faces of Abba's precious ones.....
much love love love,
Katie
