In the City

It is the day to celebrate love and friendship!  The street vendors are busy at every street corner selling roses and I can imagine that flowers and chocolate are big sellers today. I was impressed this morning in my devotion reading by 1 John 4:5-11. While chocolate and roses are wonderful treats, what can compare with God’s love for us? Sacrificial love that results in our salvation? Not much!! And best yet, he gives us the opportunity to live in His love, serving Him by bringing that love to others. 

The Quest team is on their way, arriving tonight at 7:35ET.  Be in prayer for their safety as they travel both to and from and during their stay here in the Cibao region. Tomorrow they will be heading to San Francisco to work while I get the final preparations ready for the water project in La Canela.

I just realized I have not given you an update this week- Tuesday I was able to visit with Simon and some community leaders he got together. We presented the water project, the purifier as well as the cooperative plan we want to bring. Basically, our plan is to donate the equipment, have the community establish a cooperative which will generate funds that will be reinvested in the community. While paying a fee for the pure water, they still experience a huge savings while having access to more water, not to mention clean water!  The plan was well accepted and the representative from the city government was there and we hope in the future to maybe tie the purifier into the whole town system which would allow for the whole town to receive pure water from their taps! What a blessing that would be!

During the week, I have struggled with the difficulties of trying to be a catalyst for community development as well as church planting and church development.  There are always so many issues and it seems competing interests that get in the way of helping.  You would think it would be simple but when human beings get in the mix, things can get crazy quickly! 

Today as we celebrate Love and Friendship, I am remembering what Paul taught us about love in 1 Corinthians 13…

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

     Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

     Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.  When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.  Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Catch that? Without love, nothing we do or say matters a whole lot! And the love that he describes is not just roses and chocolates! It is a deep commitment to respect and to care and to forgive. What a world we would have if we put it into action! I encourage you today as you celebrate Valentine’s Day, to meditate on this incredible teaching of Paul about love, and put at least some of it into action!