I work hard to keep a fuzzy boundary between
my calling as a pastor and my writing here. I try not to have
agendas, spiritual or otherwise for this blog. I write what is in my heart, trying not to concern myself with how you might receive it. I need this boundary. I need something
in my life that is just for me.
This posting skirts the edge of that boundary because it is the
prayer I’ve been praying for a week now. Something of its sentiment was in
yesterday's sermon. This is what’s on my heart. Thanks for
“listening.”
A Prayer For Friends In Moldova:
There is a place in this world, Lord, a land of
great poverty and need. It is called Moldova. I know you’ve heard of it.
Orphans are abundant in Moldova. They wander the streets begging for food and
searching for shelter. If they are lucky, they are rounded up and warehoused in
overcrowded orphanages where metal cribs fill every room and exhausted women
drop off bottles and change as many diapers as they can.
In Moldova evil men are everywhere, attracted like rats to garbage. They snatch
young girls off the streets with promises of clothing and food, then whisk them
into a dark underworld of prostitution, slavery, drug addiction, and death.
The terror of the moment when these girls first understand what is in store for
them is an evil so dark and horrible that it causes us to quake with loathing
and revulsion. It shakes our faith to its core, and we wonder where you are and
why you do not protect these little ones.
For surely you must know, dear God, that this great evil is one of the foulest
malignancies ever to worm its way through the stinking flesh of humanity.
And it happens every day.
In Moldova.
And to this needy land, you have called four of our friends from Covenant
Baptist Church.
Ben, a lawyer, who has spent his entire career wondering if you really wanted
him to take care of children. He has only just found peace with his life and
vocation, and now you will break his heart.
Jenny, a young nurse who works in the special care nursery of one of our
hospitals. She gives herself every day to the sickest and smallest children. But
you will break her heart in new ways.
Brittney and Danielle, two high school girls who live in the schoolgirl reality
of America, a world of music, chores, and Friday nights. They have saved their
tips and tiny paychecks for a year, and now they go into the darkness to have
their tender hearts broken.
These four heard your call and answered it. They have counted the cost and made
good plans. You lead and they willingly follow you.
Even unto Moldova.
What good will our four small friends be in the vast ocean of misery that awaits
them? What difference can four people make? These questions are above and beyond
us. Ours is to follow your Spirit and our hearts. Ours is to offer our gifts
into your service. And now four of our own have given themselves in Christ’s
name to the least of your children in the lowliest of places.
We do not pray first for their safety, for you have not called them first to be
safe. You have called them into harm’s way, and they have followed you there. We
do not pray that they be untouched by misery, for you often call those with the
strongest and kindest hearts to see the world with your eyes and be broken on
the rough and jagged altar of human weakness.
So we take a deep breath, wanting to be right on this, and we pray that their
hearts be broken indeed, but that you keep their spirits whole. Yes, break their
hearts, but let the breaking lead to a new vision, a higher calling, and a
desire to serve humanity with love and with grace.
When their time of service is done, bring them home to us, freshly wounded and
newly passionate. We will hear their stories and look at the pictures they took.
Our hearts will be broken along with theirs.
And then we shall see what you can do with a hundred or so people whose hearts
will beat…
For Moldova.
rlp
Links:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3071965/
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0305-06.htm
http://www.usembassy.md/en-ambassador_hodges2.htm
