Heaven Under Our Feet

This past week I had the opportunity to travel with a church group to Costa Rica and visit the Lighthouse Children's Home. Its founder is Larry Neff, who was an orphan himself at age three. Larry felt the call early in his Christian life to build Christian orphanages to help homeless and needy children. The first home he built was in Mississippi in 1978. The second home he opened was in Costa Rica and he has since opened additional homes in Panama, Mexico, and India.

I have to admit that I was nervous and anxious on the flight down as I wondered about the living conditions and how the children would react to bunch of “gringos” invading their home.

A tour guide described the area where the orphanage is located as the armpit of Costa Rica with broken down squatter homes, guard dogs, and lots of bars to keep the thieves out. As we arrived, I would say that was a pretty apt description of the outside, but what lay on the inside contained the jewels and treasures of heaven. For you see, the Lighthouse home is comprised of 23 children who are there for a myriad of reasons. Most are there because their parents have either abandoned them or could not afford to care for them. Tragic, I know, but when you meet these children you would never guess that their backgrounds were so broken. Larry and his wife Paula, and Sally the “house mother” and her husband Terry have literally poured the love of God into these children.

Mother Teresa used to say that a person’s greatest need is not food and water but to be loved. These children are well fed, well clothed, and have a Christian school on the premises, but you quickly realize that it is not these things that enable them to exude such peace and happiness. It is the love and acceptance they receive every day. It is not hyperbole when I say that our church group had the privilege of being in the presence of living epistles.

These children with such difficult and tragic beginnings welcomed all of us with open arms, smiling faces, and a sense of love that I have never felt before anywhere. The language barrier (the primary language is Spanish) soon faded as we gathered every night to share testimonies, Bible devotions, and songs. During the day we dug holes, poured cement, mowed lawns, washed and painted school walls, cooked meals, and helped teach the school-aged children. Each day we marveled at how each child had his/her role in the home and did his/her chores without complaining.

On the plane ride home, I sat next to a man from Miami who had traveled to Costa Rica on business. When I shared with him that we were there on a mission’s trip, he asked if my husband used his vacation time to go on the trip. When I replied yes, he remarked, “Really? He used his own time to live in a place like that and dig holes and mow lawns every day?” I suppose that is a fair assessment as on the surface it seems ludicrous to spend your vacation time in the armpit of Costa Rica digging ditches and washing walls but, in reality, God gave us a taste of heaven.

In so many ways the whole experience reminds me of all the paradoxes that are contained in Christianity – you have to die to live, lose your life to find it, have faith the size of a mustard seed to move a mountain, go to a Costa Rican orphanage to find the Sermon on the Mount being lived out every day.

A woman named Patricia who can only be described as a woman completely in love with the Lord, was our tour guide for a day as we visited the Rain Forest. At one point during dinner she commented that Jesus never taught His disciples how to preach, but rather how to pray. As I reflect on the trip, I realize perhaps more than ever that the gospel is not contained in great orators but in great hearts that seek to obey the Lord at any cost. What a privilege to have seen the gospel up close at the Lighthouse Children’s home. I am already planning my return visit.
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"Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them." - Mother Teresa

When God Shows Up

Ever have a moment when you really sensed God’s presence? As if He was orchestrating the very moments in a particular situation in your life? God tells us in His Word that He is always working in our lives and that He even knows the hairs on our head but often we long to sense Him, feel Him, know Him. I believe we fail to see Him in the way we desire because so often we are in disobedience or failing to confess sin. But when we are truly serving others, ministering with our heart and soul, He is there and He makes His presence known.

In the Gospel of John chapter 20, Thomas told his co-disciples that he would not believe that Jesus had resurrected unless he was able to see and touch His wounds. And when Jesus showed up and allowed Thomas to feel His nail prints and touch His sword-pierced side, Thomas cried out that he believed. Jesus then poignantly reminded him and us that he only believed because he saw Jesus in the flesh and then announced to everyone in the room “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Perhaps maybe the hardest thing God asks any of us to do on the other side of the cross is to believe that Jesus did exist and that He was who He claimed to be – the Son of God in the flesh that came to save sinners.

2,000 years is a long time and yet God tells us that 1,000 years is as one day to Him. For many of our modern scientists and philosophers it is easy to explain God away in the theories of evolution because surely if we were made in God’s image as Genesis states, God would be readily apparent. Of course, Romans 1:20-23 tells us, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things.”

There may be no other passage in the Bible other than this one that perfectly encapsulates the world’s view of God in the 21st century. We would rather worship the creation than the creator. Yet God tells us that his very essence and power are revealed in creation. But if we fail to acknowledge God here than how can we ever come to His Word and see Him there in His special revelation? The answer is we can’t. Our God really is not all that mysterious. He is not a genie in a lamp that requires some sort of magic password to grant us access to him. He is a God that inspired 40 men over a period of 1,500 years to write 66 books that all contain the same message – Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!

Every one of us that claims to be a Christian is a testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. For you see, He lives inside us and it is through us that the world knows what Thomas found out - Jesus is real. The world can see us, touch us, watch us and by so doing it is as if Jesus is standing in front of them all over again telling them to touch his wounds. We are His testament. We are His voice. We are His heart. What a privledge.