Missionaries

It is so easy to get caught up in our own life. We each have our own calling and we work hard at following our calling often never stopping to think about our brothers and sisters around the world.

I am sitting here now in the comfort of my second story study looking out on the swan river. It is very cold and stormy outside. I am wearing a thick red hoody, typing on a new PowerBook G4 (not mine), and listening to Sante. I thought to myself, I am glad that I'm not outside. It is freezing out there. And then I was gently reminded of the 100's and 1000's of our brothers and sisters now in China, and other "restricted" nations, who are sleeping outdoors in sub-zero conditions evading capture from the police for their "criminal, anti-revolutionary" activities, or just living the same lives as those who God called them to serve.

Many of these people are displaced. No place to call home. Rejected by their families. Rejected by their communities. Not entititled to jobs or even medical treatment. Treated like the worse kind of criminals. What is their crime? Loving God and loving people. Obeying the call that God has given them. Unselfishly reaching out to those in need. Becoming despised. Thought of as foolish and crazy. Yet they persist. Joyfully pressing forward in the hope of our salvation.

The least that we can do as Christians is to keep them in our prayers, as the writer of Hebrews exhorted - "Remember the prisoners as if chained with them - those who are mistreated - since you yourselves are in the body also." Hebrews 13:3.