My heart has literally been breaking over the past couple days. And things have been stirring in my heart that are hard to explain. But this one, I actually got to process a little with my team tonight (Wednesday) during debrief, so I’m gonna take a stab at writing it out in order to share it with you…
I’m not usually the kind of girl to cry. I would say I’m usually not the emotional one either. But the more I draw closer to God, the more my heart breaks for the things that break His. While it doesn’t feel good to have a broken heart, I have to praise God because a broken heart is an answer to prayer and God’s way of getting my attention. You see, three years ago that was exactly my plea to Him.
Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like You have loved me
Break my heart for what breaks Yours
Everything I am for Your Kingdom’s cause
As I walk from earth into eternity
(Hillsong United – Hosanna)
The first time God answered that plea for Him to break my heart was through the experience on my first mission trip to Haiti in December 2009-January 2010. But this time God is taking me deeper since my trust in Him has grown deeper.
There is much to share about our days here in Colombia, sharing the gospel going door to door. Its been more than words can say but what has been breaking my heart are the real life stories that are being shared when we ask before we leave if we can pray with and for them. It’s story after story of broken marriages, broken homes, sickness in what feels like every family member, unexpected death, the list goes on. Today (Wednesday) was my breaking point though.
After spending 30-40 minutes with this family of six sharing about the Recycle for Life Program and using the Evangecube to share the gospel (and praise Jesus having all six making a profession of faith), my heart just absolutely broke.
The grandmother who was visiting from Spain asked us to pray for everything to come together for her to become guardian of her granddaughter and have her move back with her to Spain. With her 13 year old granddaughter sitting right beside her, she continued to tell more about what was going on. We found out that the 13 year old’s father, the grandmother’s son, had been killed 7 years ago. It was clear that the grandmother still was having a hard time with it as her eyes flooded with tears. The part that got me was the girl being completely unaffected by the reality that she had no father because he was killed. Like it was no big deal.
Back up about an hour to the end of lunchtime, we had just heard that someone had been killed not too far from us and the local believer with us responded by saying, “Bummer…”. I specifically said, “I don’t think that’s the word I would use to describe that.” He proceeded to explain that for Colombians its part of everyday life, its nothing new, definitely not shocking. Colombians are more or less desensitized to a life being taken too soon, or so it seems.
So pair that “bummer” with the lack of emotion felt or seen by this girl with the other stories we’ve heard and your left questioning, “what is the value of a life here in Colombia?” Do they even value life? I mean, of course they do to an extent-clearly this is a generalization! But what if this situation in Colombia, of everything being a mess is exactly why God has chosen to make Himself known in this country,right now!
You wouldn’t believe the number of people making a profession of faith, choosing to put their trust in Jesus and desiring to hear the gospel. Its crazy! This is definitely not happening in the U.S. But what if God has been preparing the Colombians hearts because… What if he has been sending believers to share the gospel here because… What if He is creating unity amongst the churches and body of believers because… What if it’s all BECAUSE God’s heart is breaking into pieces. Breaking, because the people He has created in His own image here, are choosing sin, sin, sin and are being killed left and right. If not 100%, it was pretty close, of the number of people I talked to that had a close family member get killed. What if he is so tired of seeing His children choose death not life for themselves and each other as they choose to murder their neighbor.
Is there a harvest right now in Colombia, specifically, because the value of life has been lost here and something has to change?
- Emily Tuten
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