Why Does Our Service Matter?

While writing the previous article "Reaching Out" my memory traveled back a few years when a group of women from my church visited Nicaragua. I wrote about our experience and remember the devastation of visiting one ill-equipped and understaffed hospital. Now in the news it appears many of the dedicated medical professionals are being randomly dismissed from their jobs because of requesting Covid support from the government. Pray today for the kind people of Nicaragua.

From my journal, I wrote:

     "Sleep is troubled. I leave the cabin to the sound of a faint morning rooster and blowing palm fronds. For the tropical night to be so still it is filled with voices of the patients in the Nicaraguan hospital, crying out for comfort. What could we as mission trip rookies offer these people who were in such great need?

 No linens.

No food service. 

Barely a doctor or nurse.

Family members who have arrived by bus and dirt roads provide meager supplies as they wait and wonder if healing help will ever come. We wonder too. It is hard to take in such hopeless conditions.

Those of us who can manage words offer simple words of faith and comfort. These faith-filled, gentle people hold tightly to the crosses we give them. Their smiles keep us going. And the eye contact. If we are brave and can maintain eye contact with these poor, under-cared for friends, we recognize the Divine Presence connecting us all. We see Jesus. And our hearts burst with the reminder of Matthew 25:40 telling us, "In as much as you have done to the least of these, you have done onto me."

Maybe their spirits are lifted, and we leave them with a sparkle of hope. A glimpse of a Savior.

Why does service matter? While we might think we are doing something good just to make ourselves feel better about the world, service for a Christian is an expression of our search for God and not just the desire to bring about individual or social change. It is when we serve others, this beautiful divine presence of Christ himself becomes visible and a gift is offered from God to both the server and the served."

At the beginning of our service trip to Nicaragua, we were asked to look for places where we could see God. At first, we could only cry out as the psalmist in Psalms 22 "My God, why have you forsaken these people?" While it was hard to look beyond the enormous needs of a forgotten country, we discovered it was looking into the eyes where we met with the heart of God.

Sometimes it is easier to love those forgotten and far away people than it is to love someone down the street or on the other side of town. I am going to work on making eye-contact.