How to Eliminate Apathy
The following excerpt is from a blog by a World Race missionary named Angela Tibbo. I met Angi about a year ago, as I was picking up her and the rest of her team from the airport. They were preparing for a year-long trek around the world, and had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
The World Race is a bit of a bait-and-switch, I’m afraid. We (the missions organization that I work with) are rather unapologetic about it, actually: we bait potential participants with lofty ideas like “the adventure of a lifetime” and “travel the world in 11 months!” and we end up giving them places like Swaziland, which has one of the highest rates of AIDS infection in the world. Of course, they get adventure, but they also learn to inherit God’s heart for the broken, the lost, the widowed, the orphaned, the left-out, and the dying. And that’s where God’s Kingdom is seen most prevalently, in those dire situations where hope is most necessary.
Angi and her teammates have willingly plunged into darkness, knowing that the light of Christ can puncture holes of light into the darkest of places. This blog challenged me, calling me to wonder what I’m doing to find the people like “Baby” in my life. I’m sure that I pass them by every day. I hope it breaks your heart like it did mine and challenges you to act.
I found someone who makes Jesus’ heart melt, someone who makes His face light up with one look from her eyes, a little someone who fits perfectly into His arms, and a smile that makes Him want to give up everything for her. I know this to be true because Christ’s’ passion lives and breathes in my heart.
At “Care-Point” #3 in Nsoko Swaziland, I met her, and the smile that took me thousands of miles deep into the heart of The Father. Baby is her name. Right away when you meet Baby you can see that life is harder than it’s supposed to be for her. Baby suffers from respitory problems that have plagued her from birth. Her chest is misshapen and protrudes beyond normality. Asthma often sends her to the clinic because her family cannot afford a supply of medications at home. Baby also lives with chronic tonsillitis that often steals away her ability to eat when food is available. She is often too weak to walk to the G42 Care-Point. Baby is four years old and lingers around the size of a 2-1/2 year old. She is in desperate need of surgery to remove her tonsils, a simple enough procedure that could make all the difference in her precious life.
I befriended Baby right away. My natural instinct to comfort collided with The Fathers heart of compassion and drew me close to her. I assumed that she couldn’t talk because I had not heard her utter a noise the entire time, but occasionally she would reveal the greatest smile I have ever known. One day I walked to her house to meet her family and learn more about her situation. I learned that Baby talks up a storm at home, she loves to sing, and hasn’t stopped talking about her new friend since the first day she met me. “I have a new friend, and she’s the small one, just like me!” she expressed with excitement to her mother. With that one little line, she stole my heart for good. I had no idea, my petite presence could make such an impact on a child’s heart. I love my little friend too.
I’m sure it’s easy to read about Baby and feel the strings of your heart being plucked. I’m almost certain you will feel like making a difference in this world, even if only for a mere 5 seconds before the overwhelming feeling of inability and helplessness leaks into your thoughts. We are so often immobilized by the sly voice of darkness that subliminally tells us we couldn’t possibly make a difference, it’s only one kid out of millions, and besides, your hands are tied with your own bills to pay, not to mention your own kids to feed. We know this is not our Father speaking, if we were to take a moment to find the still small voice, I know that He is telling us that there is hope in one little face, freedom in giving, enough money to finance the entire Kingdom of God, and His everlasting life breathes out of our outstretched, unwavering hands… if only we could manage to get them out from under our butts.
I once fell victim to this voice of reason and doubt after the Lord told me to financially give to a ministry in Bangladesh over a year ago, and my decision plagued me for months. I knew I heard God’s voice and still turned to partner with helplessness. Where was my faith? And really, how big is my faith if it runs and hides when asked to act? I eventually repented, and right away the Lord redeemed that moment by randomly placing a photo of a young girl from Bangladesh in my hands giving me the chance to once again give financially to someone in need. Only this time I was without job. But the Lord reassured me that it’s Him who wants to provide for this child, He will always provide the money. And He has. He wants to do the same for Baby.
It honestly takes a big shift in our hearts and minds to begin to understand what the Father is about. I am beginning to see that God’s desire for me is to be shaped into a vessel that can and will conduct His love in a just and life giving fashion. I am really starting to see that my relationship with God isn’t all about me and what He can do for me and my future, but it’s about Him being the future to a hurting world through the hands and feet of a person broken for Him.
It starts with us being willing to feel His love for His children, and holding our hands out to those in need instead of folded inward. In turn He will always provide for us, He will be our future, and will lavish us with unending love. Think about it, a church that instead of meeting in a building for a cutsie service, the body of Christ, Christ in Body, meeting at the feet of the diseased, the poor, and the abandoned. A shift that will usher in the presence of God in an unmistakable way. Let’s prepare the way of the Lord. Beginning in our hearts, pouring out to those around us. This is where taking back nations for the Kingdom begins.
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