I'm in Costa Rica. It's business and I'm only here for a few days. Last month it was Ecuador and Guatemala. Next week it's Jamaica and Puerto Rico. I have to admit I love my job. Part of what I'm doing is developing future trips for Christians who want to do some volunteer work while on vacation. That means that I'm meeting some wonderful people who are doing incredible things in all these countries. I guess when the need is so glaringly obvious it's hard not to respond to it. It does my heart good to spend time with people who are rescuing children from a life spent on a garbage pile or breaking the cycle of violence and abuse or bringing food, water, electricity and hope to entire neighborhoods. All this good work is being done by Christians and Christian churches. I've noticed something interesting.
Today I met a wonderful group of people from the San Francisco Bay Area of California. They're renovating a house where at risk kids can live in a family setting. It's the fifth year this church has sent teams to Costa Rica. It's the same everywhere I go. There are wonderful American Christians helping provide for those in need in other countries. Because I spent so much time in U.S. churches I can pretty much say that there isn't the same amount of effort going into finding and helping similar kids within blocks of the churches these wonderful people attend. Why is it that, for most U.S. Christians, they need to go outside their own country...at great expense, I might add...to find people to help? Don't get me wrong, I think everyone should get out of the U.S. and experience another perspective on the world. I also think we should put just as much effort and resources into the needs right around our churches and stop pretending that everyone in the U.S. has had the chance to know the love of Jesus first hand and in person.
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