Count your many blessings

With Thanksgiving coming up, now seems like a good time to reflect on all of the ways that we have been blessed. And we have truly been blessed. Here are a few of the things we have to be thankful for. (You’re on the list!)

• Our good and generous God, whose grace is the reason for everything we do here.
• The opportunity to spend every day working to bring hope to those without accessible health care.
• Our local volunteers, who give up their time to come and sort surgical instruments, pack crates, inventory supplies, stuff envelopes, plan events.....
• Our “virtual” volunteers, whose work frees up countless staff hours for other tasks.
• Our international volunteers, who are our hands and feet in the countries we serve.
• Our individual supporters, without whom we couldn’t continue our work.
• Our church supporters, whose prayer and financial support are invaluable.
• Our business supporters, like Wesley Medical Center and Cornerstone Builders, who make events like our concert possible.
• Our staff in Bolivia: Rudy, Nestor, Tomas, Iris, and so many more who work hard to keep our hospital and guesthouse functioning.
• Brianna Brown, our Xelda Ministries administrator, who has left her home here to minister through building relationships in the community around our hospital.
• Our staff in the US: Mike, who works incredibly hard to keep everything running smoothly; Daniel, who’s proved himself to be a jack of all trades; and Leta (me), about whom I won’t say anything, because that would feel a little weird. :)
• Our board members, whose experience in missions, business, medicine, and ministry of various kinds provides valuable direction.
• Our partnership with the Bolivian National Police, with whom we’re saving the lives of traffic accident victims.
• Our partnership with John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia, Liberia, where we’re blessed to be able to help them rebuild.
• The other ministries we work with in Bolivia, Liberia, and other countries around the world, with whose help we’re able to greatly increase our impact.
• Our newly redesigned website, thanks to Brian White of Trilion Studios.
• Our new inventory system, thanks to David McQuoid of Computers in Ministry.
• All of you!

Volunteers help provide medical relief to Liberia

As many of you know, Hospitals of Hope has been working with John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Monrovia, Liberia for the last two years, in an effort to help this hospital rebuild after the country’s devastating civil war. After this summer’s successful trip and further discussion with the staff at JFK, Hospitals of Hope has begun packing another container of essential medical supplies and equipment that is due to be sent out at the beginning of December.

We’ve had a great group of volunteers helping us out as we get ready to ship this next container. This past weekend, volunteers from Pathways at Central Christian Church came and sorted through surgical instruments, and a couple of surgical techs from Wesley Medical Center have been putting the instruments into packs to be used during surgery. We (and the people of Liberia) are so blessed by all of you who help us in our goal of providing quality, accessible medical care!

If you or your group is interested in helping out, call the Hospitals of Hope office at 316.262.0964, or send an email to leta@hospitalsofhope.org.

The 648,957,200th Richest Person in the World

I'm not exactly wealthy.

Of course, I have enough to eat every day, I can pay my heat and electricity bills, and my car, while a bit beat up, is still functional.

That's not quite enough to get me on the Forbes 400 list, but still, when I visited the Global Rich List, I found that I am the 648,957,200th richest person in the world-- in the top 10.8% of the approximately 7 billion people on this planet.

Just out of curiosity, I retried the experiment with my salary as a grad student, "making just enough to starve on." Even in my first year, when my stipend was considerably below the federal poverty line, I was in the top 14.17%.

I guess that's not too surprising, considering that "At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day" (GlobalIssues.org). The top 20% of people, of whom I've always been a part, are responsible for 76.6% of the world's consumption (GlobalIssues.org).

It's easy for statistics like this to make us feel guilty. Who are we to take up three quarters of the world's resources?

That is a valid question, of course, and I'm certainly trying to be aware of how much I consume and cut down on wastefulness. But I don't think we should feel guilty about the ways we have been blessed. We should be thankful for our blessings-- and we should consider how we can use them to bless others. After all, it is "more blessed to give than to receive." Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

In 1 Timothy 6:8, Paul writes, "But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that" (NIV). I've definitely got plenty of both of those things, but not everyone does. In 3rd world countries, 1 in 3 children lacks adequate shelter, 1 in 5 lacks safe water, and 1 in 7 lacks basic health care (GlobalIssues.org).

We can't do everything, but we also aren't powerless. I think we often underestimate the impact of small sacrifices on our part. For the 80% of people living on less than $10 a day, even $10--the price of a pizza or a trip to the movies--can make a huge difference.

Those are sacrifices I can definitely afford to make. After all, I am the 648,957,200th richest person in the world.

Short-Term Volunteers Have Long-Term Impact

Can short-term missions work? Jonathan Flesher firmly believes that the answer to that question is “yes,” after his experiences volunteering with Hospitals of Hope this past summer.

Jonathan was one of over 60 volunteers who passed through the Hospitals of Hope guest house between April and August of this year, working at the hospital and in the community to meet people’s physical and spiritual needs. Many of these volunteers were students or full-fledged medical or dental professionals, but many others had no medical training and served in other ways.

Jonathan felt that the most tangible difference he and his team were able to make was at the Casa de Alegría—the House of Happiness—a home for girls who have been victims of abuse. Over the course of three weeks, these volunteers set out to bless these young women. The volunteers with medical and dental training did checkups on the girls, cleaned their teeth, and performed any necessary extractions. The men in the group replaced broken windows and used pick axes and hoes to break up the hard ground of the orphanage’s garden. The women spent time building relationships with the girls, taking them to church and to lunch, and giving them makeovers. Over the course of the three weeks, the volunteers witnessed a visible change in countenance in the girls, from quiet and withdrawn to joyful and engaged.

Another aspect of his ministry in Bolivia that Jonathan felt was particularly meaningful was outreaches to street children. Again, Hospitals of Hope volunteers provided basic health and dental care for these kids, along with health and hygiene education. While other volunteers worked on meeting these physical needs, Jonathan and Andy Hilton, another Hospitals of Hope volunteer, set up a prayer station where they talked and prayed with these young men and women. While drug abuse is widespread on the street and interfered with some aspects of the volunteer’s ministry, Jonathan and Andy were amazed to see that the drug use stopped while they prayed. This was the only time during their ministry that the kids were not sniffing glue. As Andy wrote, “This was the only time I remember the kids being still and calm, during prayer. It was an amazing and humbling sight to see as some of the kids actually knelt before God, as their Father, asking us to pray for their original families that they left behind to live on the streets.”

One of the things that impressed Jonathan the most during his time in Bolivia was the way Hospitals of Hope partners with other organizations and individual missionaries. These partnerships, he believes, provide an opportunity for God to really work through the Christian community there. We are just one group, but our partnerships allow us to minister to the girls at the Casa de Alegría and to the street children and ensure that this ministry will not end when our short-term volunteers leave.

When many of our volunteers come back, they tell us that their time in Bolivia has changed them, that God has used it to transform their life and their perspective. Jonathan’s experience was no different. In fact, he believes that God used his time with Hospitals of Hope to call him to long-term missions, perhaps in Bolivia.

Can short-term missions work? Jonathan believes that his experience is proof that it can, “if you’re willing to put your heart into a situation.”

The Concert and Beyond

Thanks to all of you who came out for last week's concert! We had around 200 of you come out to show your support and hear some amazing music from Waterdeep, Justin McRoberts, and SHEL. We especially want to thank all of you who volunteered to help with childcare, tickets, cleanup, etc. You all were great!

Now that the concert is over, we're turning our full attention to our other projects. One of the biggest ones we're working on right now is preparing to send another container of medical equipment to Liberia. The container we sent earlier this year has already made a big difference there, but the hospital still lacks many essentials. We've been talking with the hospital administration and are working on procuring some of the most important items that they still need. We've already got 3 x-ray machines, a bunch of hospital beds, and thousands of dollars worth of surgical instruments ready to send. As you can probably imagine, our warehouse is getting pretty full!

We're also continuing work on our longer-term project of implementing our new inventory system and getting the warehouse organized. This will be easier once we get the Liberia container sent, but there's a lot of work to do between now and then! If you're interested in helping out, send me an email at leta@hospitalsofhope.org.

Music and Missions at the Concert of Hope

We're really excited about the benefit concert tomorrow night, featuring Waterdeep, Justin McRoberts, and SHEL. They're all amazingly talented, and we're thrilled to have them partnering with us to help bring health care to the poor around the world.

I've just been reading a bit more about Justin McRoberts on his website and blog, and I'm really excited to get to hear him in person. Justin is deeply committed to supporting mission work, especially groups like Compassion International, the International Justice Mission, and the Blood Water Mission (and now us!). In regards to working on behalf of the poor, Justin writes, "I believe these are the defining characteristics of our likeness to God. The need and desire to care for the poor and oppressed is something we share in common with all humanity, not simply the religious."

Here's an excerpt from a recent post from his blog, talking about his song "Man Like Me":

Regarding the songs theme: I had just finished reading Jonathan Kozol..s book Savage Inequalities and was struck by the situation many poor find themselves in; the cycle of having nothing to stand on to help them climb out of their dilemma. For many poor, their desire is to not to be carried or receive a lifetime of free handouts, but to receive the initial help they need to get their foot on the first rung.. as Jeffery Sachs writes in The End Of Poverty. I realize full well that I say this in direct defiance of many who look upon the poor collectively as lazy and ill-intentioned. This social perspective is part of the dehumanization that the spirit of Poverty is most bent upon instilling in those who have. It begins with a sense of entitlement; that we have been something other than fortunate or blessed, but have in fact received our due. Those who are poor, in turn, receive what they deserve according to their efforts. In the long run, this perspective leads us to equate value with wealth and that kind of blindness is something far more than ignorant, it is destructive and shameful.

So come out tomorrow night and join us at Maranatha Worship Center (888 S. Webb Road in Wichita) for a great evening of music and missions. We hope to see you there!

Suffering and Redemption

I’ve always thought that the question “Why do bad things happen to good people?” seemed sort of cliché. Not only that, but it’s a question that I can theologically dismiss in about two seconds:

Q. Why do bad things happen to good people?

A. There are no good people. Next question.

Unfortunately, though, that answer doesn’t get rid of the issues of injustice and pain. And these are issues that resurface again and again. The current recession continues to cost hardworking people their livelihoods. A friend of mine recently lost a couple of people close to her in a tragic accident. My sister witnessed the effects of decades of war while teaching in Afghanistan. Our staff and volunteers have seen people dying because of lack of basic medical care in Liberia and Bolivia. I, personally, have been faced over and over again with children begging on the streets of Bolivia and Guatemala.

Especially in this profession, these are issues that I can’t escape from. And, really, none of us can.

Some people buy into “Oprah theology,” as my pastor recently pointed out—they comfort themselves by claiming that everything is supposed to happen, that God planned for these bad things to happen in order to bring about some greater purpose. Others claim that God is powerless to change things—that he hates the tragedies we experience but can’t stop them. Others claim that God is simply cruel, or distant, or nonexistent.

I can’t buy into any of those theories. I can’t believe that God orchestrates evil—and to me there is no question that many things that happen are evil. And I think that the Bible is clear that God is all-powerful, that he has the power to stop bad things from happening, as well as that he is loving and deeply personal.

I could go on writing about this for hours, about how this ultimately comes back to the Fall and to the question of free will, etc, but I don’t have time to write that, and I’m sure you don’t have time to read it. Really, though, I think the key to this issue lies in Romans 8:28: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (NIV). It doesn’t say God causes the pain, just that he uses it for good, and I find this immensely comforting.

In my own life, I’ve found that the main way God uses the evil that I’ve experienced to accomplish good is through other people. It’s amazing to me how He uses such fragile instruments as human beings to redeem suffering—to fight evil, and to replace it with good.

And that’s what we’re trying to do here. We can’t change the histories of the places we work or of the people we work with. We can’t change the fact that war and injustice and natural phenomena have caused untold suffering. But we can let God use us to bring healing and hope. Bad things will continue to happen, but God is good and will redeem our suffering. And I’m willing to bet my life on that.