I was listening to one of my favorite musical artists Sade, the other day. She was singing her song, Pearls. Due to recent event in the news, it really hammered me. It really reminded me as I sat in a Panera Bread restaurant, drinking my coffee, how lucky I have it and I prayed for those in Turkey and Syria and I prayed for those who I have known from both countries.

Sade – Pearls (Live) – YouTube

I realize that I frequently make negative comments about my Christian college experience. However, one very positive way that going there expanded my brain is that I had many international experiences. The professors tried to explain to us how different American ideas (many that we take for granted) are seen in different cultures. I regularly ate lunch with other students who would tell me about their lives in Zimbabwe, Hong Kong, India, and other places. I was definitely challenged to see God and Jesus from different perspectives. Many American people I knew from there went onto to be missionaries in Africa and Asia. While I was there, I always hoped that I would be able to go on a short-term missionary trip internationally. Due to unseen circumstances, the farthest away I got to go on a missionary trip was to New York City and North Philly. Thankfully, I have been able to do some travelling internationally in later life.

It is easy to live within our own suburban cloisters, with a Wal-Mart, a McDonalds, a T-Mobile store, and a Starbucks right down the street. Then events like the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria with mind-boggling numbers of people killed, are thrust before us in the news. Numbers like 20,000 dead challenge my ability to comprehend. Back in 2005, the Indian and Sri Lankan and Indonesian tsunamis killed 230,000 people! Those international tragedies are entire families, communities, cities!

We have events here in the United States that have killed thousands too. But I think that I am not alone when I say that it is hard to believe something like that happening here with that many deaths (short of Yellowstone blowing up, California disappearing into the San Andreas fault, or nuclear war).

We need to learn from these events. Not only do we need to learn to thank the One-Above-All that by the grace of God go I, but we need to be willing to pray, to give what we have, and to go and serve if called. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of spiritual need here in the United States. But I have always maintained that financial poverty here in the United States means that a kid doesn’t have an X-Box or has to shop at WalMart or Target for clothes instead of a top-level clothes store. You may be called to go outside of your family, your community, your city, to pray, to give what you have, and/or go and to serve, to a woman in Somalia or elsewhere. Answer that call, it will be worth it!

Matthew 28L19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

—————————————————————————————————-W.