Today the quiet time reading was from Matt. 26: 6-13 which is the passage about the woman who breaks the flask on the Lord’s head, we talked about it for a while, all is great we went our way.  My group went to the neighborhood of Nkola where we had many opportunities to share the word of God with many welcoming souls.  Many of them were already Christians of some sort and they were very happy to hear that someone cares for them.  I was really concerned with the austere conditions these people lived in, between Egypt and Iraq I can say I have seen my share of real bad living conditions, but here it seems much worse especially with the HIV situation.  Throughout the day I couldn’t help but think of their physical needs and of how I/We can help, to the point that I was questioning if it would have been better for me to just donate the money that I spent on the trip, which I know is a crazy thought, but I couldn’t help but entertain it, and the more I thought about it the more it made sense to me to think of how many missionaries here, especially since these people already know about Christ.  Towards the end of the day I was a bit confused, so I went and had a chat with Fr.  Abraham about this very same thing, and he explained to me how most of his congregation are just in need of love, they just need to know that they are thought of and loved more than anything else.  Ok it’s the nightly sharing session; I am still a bit consumed with  whole physical needs thing, as people prayed God spoke to me and said alright you need to lay this to rest, I knew you were going to go through this that’s why I prepared Matt.  26: 6-13 as the reading for you today; and that’s when I realized that the enemy of God was trying to planet similar seeds to those he planted in the heart of  disciple who said “why this waste?  For this fragrant oil might have been sold for much and given to the poor. I guess for a good portion of the day I lost the spiritual focus of why we are here, we are here to break the flask and pour its fragrance on the head of the Lord Jesus.  I focused too much on the physical aspect of these hard conditions and forgot that “though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned but have not love, it profits me nothing”.  Lord forgive me, how can I value the corporeal and exalt it above the spiritual, how can I be so wrong for not remembering that love is God, and God is all they can ever need.

Filed under: Africa Summer 2007 - DC, Uncategorized