Dear Friends:
Joel Osteen said something on Sunday that really caught my attention. It was something like: “When God puts the whole world on pause, you had better sit up and pay attention!” And that is exactly what has happened. Coronavirus notwithstanding, the whole world has been placed on pause. And what has happened during this pause?
People are staying home, spending more time with family by far than most of us did before.
We are inventing things to do together. Going for walks, doing puzzles, watching Netflix movies, and so on.
Many of us are learning quite suddenly to live on less income. In some cases, people around the world are quite literally starving because they have no income anymore.
We are learning to be careful—we could get infected, but we don’t want to pass it on to others.
Most of us are worried—what is this doing to the economy? What if one of my loved ones, or even I contract Coronavirus?
What am I going to do with my hair?
But the truly important thing for us to do is think about what God may doing and saying during this pause. For many this may be the first time in a long time when we have had a lot of time to consider that. So, what do you think God is saying? What is He doing? I feel like a big thing He wants us all to do is reconsider our priorities. The world as we know it, has just changed. Life is not going on as usual.
On a global level, this pandemic has revealed much about who we are and who we think we are. Consider that so many in the world believe we are just a product of natural selection. The theory of survival of the fittest would dictate that the weak should die and the strong survive. So, why not let the pandemic accomplish what they believe? But, that is not what we are seeing! Instead, we are seeing people, indeed entire nations, grinding to a halt to protect the weakest and most vulnerable. Even those who say they believe in evolution, must be taking pause at this world-wide reaction. Hopefully many will begin to ponder what they really believe!
The point is that on a global level, people are realizing and respecting that other people have intrinsic value, regardless of their health and age. Which brings me to what God teaches us:
Jer 31:3 The LORD appeared to us in the past, saying: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness…
And then he reminds us that even as He loves us, we must love one another:
1 John 4:7-11 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another
And even in difficult times, God is there to love us:
Rom 8:38-39 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
To God, each and every one of us has intrinsic value. But, our lives are not the most important thing during this pandemic: Our relationship with Jesus Christ and how we demonstrate His love to others is. With that kind of love, mountains will be moved, skeptics and unbelievers will be saved, fear will be destroyed, and we will have all learned some very valuable lessons about godly priorities in our lives.
Let us pray for others, let us work on demonstrating that love in every place we can during this season, and I believe we will see Jesus high and lifted up in many lives that were previously untouched.
Our girls remain in quarantine during this time, though it appears there may be loosening of restrictions soon. For them, it has been a time of growing together, helping one another, trying new challenges, like making cool-looking tortillas, and even celebrating birthdays. We pray that, even more importantly, it has been a time in which they have grown closer to God.
I want to share a little bit of the story of Yesenia. She turned 18 last year, and moved out of Casa. She was supposed to be finishing her “open school” high school diploma so she could go to college. She had always seemed so together, so smart, so interested in following the Lord. But along the way, when she got her “independence”, things changed. Her priorities changed. More quickly than we could imagine, she was off living the “party life.” Maybe you have children or young ones that have gone through, or maybe are still in this life that the Bible calls the “road to destruction” Matt. 7:13.
For Yesi, we had done all we could to help her learn about and grow in the Lord. She had a background. When she flung herself into the trap of all “the world” has to offer, we prayed. Along the way, and thankfully quickly, God brought her back! She is now once again on “solid ground”, having turned away from that and back to Him. To God be the glory! This encourages many of us that God will also rescue our loved ones who have taken a similar path. Don’t give up! God loves them even more than we do!
We pray that you will find the Lord’s Hope, His Peace, His Love, and His Power to make you an overcomer during this time!
I hope you and your families are well. As I mentioned last month, we cancelled our reunion with our students and their families due to the global pandemic. In the eight years that the program has been in place, this is the first time that we’ve had to cancel a monthly meeting.
Our girls from Casa prepared food pantry kits for each family from Alas. We know some of the parents have been laid off from work and there is a scarcity of food and other products in Palomas. We distributed beans, flour, rice, and toilet paper.We asked each one of the Pastors and Representatives of each church to pick up the dispensas and to help us distribute the kits to each one of the families.
Every year for the month of May we have a Family Day Celebration. We had planned a big festival at casa, but we will be cancelling our upcoming reunion as well. We will be preparing food pantry kits for each family again. We want to keep our students and parents motivated through these difficult times. For this reason, we will be sharing a short message through Facebook with them and we will be doing a raffle for useful gifts.