A Quiet Revolution

Where to start...

In our hearts is a quietly emerging revolution. One that began a long time ago and is giving birth to new ideas and prospects for future ministry. We've been doing lots of reading, soul searching, and growing lately. God has been placing new things on our hearts and we are pumped! First off we felt lead to start a small group in our home. One where EVERYONE is welcome, one where we grow and share together, learn from each other, and study the Bible, which can often be difficult to understand. We are learning what it means to be like Jesus, that often people who claim to be his followers fall terribly short, and we too feel convicted. Deep in our hearts we have a desire to live like Christ, to love and live with the poor, and to love all those we meet. Suddenly, life, our calling, and our faith are making sense in a way that they didn't before and we feel content. Not content in where we are, because we want to do so much more than what we are doing, we want to love deeper and go far beyond what we think imaginable, but what we have started is exciting.

There are many stories we could share with you, but let's start by saying that we see Jesus in the face of our friends. In the friend that stays at our house because he struggles with alcoholism and cannot go back to his broken home, our friend who doesn't know where she is going to get the money to pay for her children's schooling, our friend who is our Spanish tutor and has shown us love time and time again this year, or our friend from the local market who is searching for significance in his life and is going to start attending our group. Love transforms. When we live life to serve, we see Jesus. Thanks for contributing to our work so that we can be here and do full-time ministry. Thank you. God is beautiful and as Shane Claiborne says in his book The Irresistible Revolutionn "We are about spreading a way of life that exists organically and relationally and is marked by such a brilliant love and grace that no one could resist it." And as we spread that way of life we have seen some beautiful things and some remarkable changes in people. This week made us stand in awe of God, his grace, and love for us. We feel humbled to be living here and sharing life with wonderful people, though we are all broken, we can help one another on this journey that is life.

This week Jennifer had the chance to go to the doctor once again with her friend and little Vicente. Vicente is a 10 year old boy who cannot see well because he is almost blind in one eye due to a cornea problem and has severly damanged vision in the other eye. A friend of ours felt lead to use a connection she has with a doctor to help little Vicente and his vision. This precious child comes from one of the poorest neighborhoods of Leon and his family have no resources to help his situation. To give you perspective, his mother got married and had a baby at age 13. She is 30 with a 17 year old, 10 year old, and 8 year old. We met Vicente when we worked in his neighborhood on Saturdays. It is not that these people are bad, or stupid, they merely do not know any better because they've grown up in these conditions their whole life and have not been given opportunities to help them succeed. Well, come to find out, Vicente needs a cornea transplant and it costs about $4,000. Our mutual friend is looking for assistance, but so far she has not found any help. We would love to see God bring sight to Vicente so he can play and do his school work like normal. If you are interested in contributing to his surgery or know someone who would be, please send us an e-mail. In the meantime he is going to have some special lenses made that will help his vision a little. Thankfully, we have a friend from the States that donated some money that will be used to help Vicente with his lenses. We know many people like Vicente. Sadly, we cannot help everyone, but we can do little things with lots of love. That is all any of us can do. And we hope to watch this precious child open his eyes wider soon. =)

God is calling all of us to a revolution, to make a difference in the world, and do something big with our lives. Are we going to listen?

Pictures: Vicente and his house.