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“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost until he find it? And when he hath found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And …comes home…” Luke 15:4-6
“…I being in the way, the Lord led me …” Genesis 24:27
Most of us want to know where we are going before we go. I personally think the thing that keeps many people from visiting the mission field is not knowing where they are going, or how to go about going or what they may find when they get there. Secular business schools teach us to define our goals and plot our critical path, which is the “mind of Greece” but not the “mind of Zion.”
God’s promise is the steps of a righteous man will be ordered of the Lord. Abraham went out not knowing where he was going. His servant Eleazar did not know how to go about looking for a wife for Abraham’s son Isaac, but “being in the way, the Lord met him.”
Because, like the TV commercial, we want to know before we go, we oftentimes don’t go. Rich Stearns of World Vision said that Christians have a huge hole in their lives, an emptiness that comes from ignoring the plight of the poor. How about you? Would you like to fill the void in your heart?
I have found in missions work that you have to be willing to go and look and learn before you really know what the real issues are and what the answers are to the underprivileged, struggling peoples of the world. Recently, I visited Kenya; when I returned, I put together a report on the great needs we confront there and a staged plan for dealing with them. One individual that I talked with said the issue was overwhelming and too much. However, as I was taught in the engineering world about mega-projects, there is only one way to eat an elephant – One mouthful at a time.
Let me tell you about a major need in Kenya: It is the need to give a high school education to young people who graduate from state-supported elementary schools and then are otherwise stuck unless they have funds to pay for high school. Strangely, it costs $1,000 US dollars or less for tuition, room, and board for one child per year. The way I think of it is I can send a child through one year of high school for less than the difference between a coach and business class ticket on a one-way trip from the US to Kenya. It’s impossible to sit in a business class seat knowing that a little bit of physical comfort is at the expense of some child’s future.
It seems the Lord is increasingly sending me young men and women who need help to get through high school, and I have several such requests. I know the Lord is speaking to me about this, but I need your help just like Abraham needed Eleazar. I also know if we start, WME will soon have its own high school.
If something in this little inspirational touches your heart, would you consider taking one of these little lambs of God on your spiritual and financial shoulders and carrying that child to the sheepfold of the Lord Jesus Christ? If you are moved of the Lord to do this, we will see that you are directed through WME to a young person who desperately needs your help and support. It’s a four year commitment now- it’s an eternal reward hereafter.
By John G. Cathcart
www.wme.org
World Missionary Evangelism 