For the Least of These

        During the month of April we traveled to the border of the Dominican Republic and Haiti and along with a large team, we worked and served the Lord in that area.  As we worshipped on Sunday morning at the new mission center, Terry Douglass reminded us in his sermon of  Matthew 25, and the description of the separation of the “sheep and the goats.”  I would urge you to read this passage, particularly verse 31 through the end of the chapter. 

         The sheep and goats are divided, not on  the basis of one group doing evil and the other doing good.  The distinguishing characteristic is that the “sheep” had done something for the “least of these.”  They had given food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing to the naked;  they had been hospitable to the stranger, and cared for the sick and visited those in prison.  It was not that the “goats” had been cruel or hurtful to those in need, it was that they had just done nothing!. 

        There is a third group which is not mentioned in this passage.  Those are the wolves. Since I have gone to the mission field, I have seen other groups of Christians working, and cooperating to take care of those in need.  They are serving Jesus on the mission field.  I have also seen people who are doing nothing, and have no interest in helping.  But I have also seen those who are hurting the least of these.  I am aware of some groups who are raising money in the states, claiming that they are doing great work in Haiti, and yet when we visited an impoverished Haitian village in sight of one of these mission projects, the people there were receiving no  help.

        People who fraudulently claim to be helping, and raise money here  in the United States to provide help in other countries, but do not really help, are the wolves;  I would not want to be in their shoes at the judgment which Jesus is describing in this passage. Some ministries are raising millions of dollars on television, but really accomplishing nothing except making themselves rich. 

        We made a faith commitment to provide $2500 per month into the foreseeable future to support thirty children and eight orphanage staff, and to provide an emergency fund .  When a group claims it needs millions to care for a single orphanage, look out!  It grieves our hearts to see money being given to help the poor, and then see that money diverted into buying fancy cars and buildings, and paying huge salaries to people here.  Some day all of us will stand before the Lord and give an accounting.

        The Jimani Project is a ministry to the poorest of the poor. These were the people that our Lord told us to serve.  He said when we served them, we were serving Him, and on this last trip, we certainly found his face in the faces of the hungry, sick and imprisoned. 

        One little two-year-old girl was brought to us by her grandmother.  She is suffering from a form of cancer of the retina of the eyes.  The cancer grows behind the eyes and forces the eye out of its socket.  When she came to us, one eye was hanging on her cheek, and the other was already beginning to bulge out.  To see such a thing is shocking, and most people will turn away. Dr. Clint Doiron is a Knoxville cardiologist, and we gathered around the little girl and her grandmother and began to pray.  “Lord, there are things that are way beyond us, and this is one of those,” Clint prayed with tears in his eyes. “Help us to know how to help,”  was the prayer that we all prayed.  Later in the week, Clint made arrangements with a hospital in Santo Domingo to perform surgery on the little girl, if we could get her across the border into the Dominican.  On Friday we placed the little girl on our bus after the end of a clinic at a little church in Haiti, and brought them back with us into the DR.  They stayed with us at the J. Harold Smith Christian Training Center that night in a comfortable room, and ate with us at a little restaurant in Jimani.  The next day we took them to Santo Domingo, and they were welcomed for treatment at the Elias Santana Hospital. Dr. Neil Barry’s sister Jill rarely left the side of that grandmother and child.  She got them food, gave them water to drink, and did everything to make them comfortable.  Her kind smile even made that desperate grandmother smile.  Dr. Doiron’s faith that the Lord was going to use us to help was inspiring.  Everyone helped protect and care for them as our guests.   From a hopeless situation on Monday, the child and her grandmother were gathered, fed, comforted, and given a hope for something better. That is the nature of our Lord; He specializes in impossible situations.  This was the first patient to stay overnight in the new center, and we were able to show hospitality to the stranger in a strange land. 

         If you want to see Jesus today, you can. When you get up in the morning, ask the Lord to give you an opportunity to help someone in desperate need.  You may not know how, but if you are willing, He will make the path.  He may shock you with what He presents to  you, and it may make you feel hopeless at first.  And the outcome may be uncertain (we don’t know if the little girl will survive the surgery or not), but He will let you be a part of  His Greater Plan, and briefly you will get to look into the eyes of Jesus Christ. In an interesting way “the least of these “ turn out to be The Greatest One. Isn’t the Christian life truly and adventure?