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| I walk down the street in Pastor Nahum's village and hear them yelling out with little giggles, "Rochelle, Rochelle!" Then they wait because they know I'll stop. I always stop for them. Oh this love! My heart has been stolen! |
Have you ever dreamed for someone who didn't have enough hope to dream for themselves?
I don’t remember making the choice to start dreaming for hundreds of
hopeless poverty stricken village children in Haiti. It’s all kind of strange and I can’t fully
understand it. It sort of just evolved
somehow along the journey. There wasn't a
grand defining moment in the shift from where my own dreams transitioned into becoming
their dreams. What I've discovered about dreaming is that when you are a child of the
Creator all that dreaming turns into praying. I've also learned dreaming for the hopeless
puts you in a paradoxical position. I
think it’s dangerous how I can feel both brave and afraid. On one side of the dream I run carefree with wild
faith where I see broken children rising up to defeat the gross poverty they
were born into. Yet on the other side of
the dream I’m fully exposed to their reality and positioned awfully close to
their hopeless state—and there is the rub.
I feel drawn to dream and scared to dream with a feeling of rightness
about dreaming for these needy children in this way all at the same time. Never before have I had such a pull on my
heart and surely it must be the hand of my Maker doing all of this stirring and
pulling.
Will I dream
even bigger or will the close proximity to their miserable state infect me with
the disease of hopelessness and pull me straight into the darkness with them? I've decided dreaming for the hopeless all
boils down to a struggle between faith and fear. But when you love the ones you’re dreaming
for, faith has a way of driving out the fear and I suppose this truth mingled
with God’s grace is how I keep dreaming.
What exactly
do the dreams I have for these precious children look like, you wonder? I really wish there were an easy way for me
to answer that question but getting what’s caught up in my heart and head into
text can be a tricky thing and that’s not the full of it because a dream in
writing is still only a great fantasy at best if it never gets lived out as
reality. All I can say for now is the
dream I’m dreaming for this village of hurting children involves the church…YOU,
my dear sisters and brothers, are a special part of this big dream and YOUR
willingness to participate once the dream is put into writing will determine
whether or not this dream lives or dies.
In God’s timing, I’m trusting for Him to give me the words to share the
dream. At the foundation of my dream is the love of Jesus and this love is what can compel a big huge part of the church to reach out and take the hands of the children in Pastor Nahum’s
village. In some ways it's quite simple...it's a dream for the church to be the church for the glory of our holy Lord Jesus. The heart of our God is the motivation behind this dream and I'm believing for it to come true—it’s His
calling for the church to rise up and bear the fruit of His love by responding to
the poor. Keep tracking with us here at Back to Life Ministries...God wants to use YOU!!
He who is kind to the poor lends to the
LORD, and he will reward him for what he has done. Proverbs 19:17
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