Contact Us

Use the form on the right to contact us.

You can edit the text in this area, and change where the contact form on the right submits to, by entering edit mode using the modes on the bottom right. 

         

123 Street Avenue, City Town, 99999

(123) 555-6789

email@address.com

 

You can set your address, phone number, email and site description in the settings tab.
Link to read me page with more information.

Our Blog

SUFFERING

     Thousands of miles and a whole continent in between are two women.  They don't know each other, nor will they while on this earth.  Yvonne and I know them both.  Both of them are suffering.

     Several weeks ago Yvonne was coming home after visiting a friend when she came upon Bernadette.  Wrapped in little more than rags, Bernadette was laying outside the doors of local clothing and jewelry stores, barely conscious.

     Though we did not know her name at that time, we've seen Bernadette before along with countless other beggars that roam our neighborhood.  We had never seen her in this condition.  

     Her lips were white, her eyes yellow and her hair speckled with grit from the street.  She sat in a puddle of air conditioning condensation and her own urine.  Without help she couldn't sit up, let alone stand up.  

     Someone nearby had given her a cup of water and a morsel of food, but she was too weak to lift her hand to put them to her mouth.  Two young women had stopped to comfort her, but really did not know what to do.  Mostly, people either just walked by or stood and stared.

     With the help of our translator, Gerand, we were able to extract enough information to know that if we didn't help her she was going to die.  The three of us were eventually able to lift Bernadette into a tuc tuc and transport her to the local hospital.

     Within a day she had regained much of her strength.  Within two days she was able to walk to a bathroom (without her cane) and bathe.  A week later she was able to leave the hospital.

     The curious thing about Bernadette is that she has family not far away.  They have enough to provide their sister food and shelter, but Bernadette prefers wandering the streets and begging.  We have seen her several times in the last week, right where she has been before.

     While it is apparent that Bernadette, who is 60 years old, suffers from some form of dimensia, it is also apparent that she has enough awareness to know she has a place where she could live in a semblance of dignity.  She prefers indignity.  Her family is well aware of her condition, but is unwilling to fight through Bernadette's obstinance to help.

     Back in the states, there is another who is suffering.  She did not grow up in squalor, but in middle class America.  As a young girl she contracted polio.  Now as a 74-year-old woman she is battling cancer.

     What we know about Jeannine is that she is a fighter.  She fought through polio and raised a family without the help of an absentee husband.  She persevered through adversity and was able to provide.  The ultimate fruits of her labor are two children of immense character.  

     Her son and daughter are the picture of what any parent's heart would desire; both accomplished and both with healthy families of their own.  Most importantly, they love their mother deeply.

     When we heard of Jeannine's challenge Yvonne and I really didn't know how to respond.  You see, Jeannine is a friend of ours.  We have shared Christmas and Thanksgiving together, but we did not know how to share in her suffering.  So, we prayed.

     Just recently we exchanged e-mails, and Jeannine said this: "I believe the only way I'll succeed in winning this challenge is with God's help."

     What I see from a distance is the success of Jeannine's suffering.  She has already won.  The rewards are her children and grandchildren, who are now at her side with love and compassion.  In return, Jeannine has persevered with courage and grace.

     No matter how pragmatic or accurate a doctor's prognosis, where there is God there is always hope.  And where there is hope there is love.  The Bible says, "...God is love...Now there abides these three; faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is love."

     You see, the difference between Bernadette and Jeannine is love.  Bernadette's family is ambivalent when it comes to her suffering.  There is defeat and separation.  There is no desire to ensure the one who is suffering any sort of comfort and in exchange they receive no comfort.

     On the other hand, Jeannine's family is tied together in love.  They are bound by compassion and mercy.  I suspect that though they might not even recognize it, that their hearts are set on the prospects of justice prevailing - that ultimately their hearts are united in eternity.

    So, one family is divided, the other united.  One is forlorn, the other hopeful. One woman suffers in bitterness, the other in love.

    We are reminded of a Savior, who's birth we are about to celebrate.  He lived, He suffered and He died...for us.  Then He was resurrected...for us.  

     Yvonne and I pray that you would know this love this Christmas.  That it would resurrect purpose in your life.  And once you know it, share it with someone who is suffering.  It is the greatest gift we could possibly give.

Declaration of Interdependence

Mike Broadhurst

    When working in developing nations, there's a favored axiom among missionaries that cultural differences "...aren't wrong, they're just different."

     I get the part about imparting humility and respect into our flawed characters, but to be honest with you I find it hard to equate a comfortable lifestyle as proof of personal, let alone cultural superiority.  The fact is, Yvonne and I often said there was little reason to leave our cozy community of Bluffton, South Carolina because there was plenty of need right in our own back yard.

     So I hope you get the idea.  At this point in history no reasonable or objective person can look around the world and conclude that the developed nations are the standard bearers of anything resembling excellence.  You would have to be blind to think so.

     From halfway across the world the viciousness with which my fellow countrymen respond to one another is sickening.  Might I suggest that we should consider tempering the contempt with which we see Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, lest we look in a mirror and be surprised by who is staring back.  I can't help but think that the best we have to offer is really a reflection of the worst of what we've become. 

     To make this point, I'm going to ask you to be honest.  When you think of people who don't agree with you, where do your emotions rest on a hate/love scale, with one being hate and 10 love.  I'm going to suggest that you're not indifferent to that person, but much closer to the one range than your comfortable to admit.

     If you doubt this, read the comments posted after any on-line newspaper article, be it conservative or liberal.  Within a few posts, insults fly and character degradations are in full swing.  Respect is non-existent and dialogue is a lost cause.

     If anyone dare post an opinion on Facebook, the response is the same.  You have to ask, "What are the motivations that fuel the exchanges?"  The evidence suggests that a country once constructed on the lofty idea of "We the People," has sunk to the pits of a pigsty branded with the moniker "I the Person."

     So, I haven't come to a developing nation with any sense of cultural superiority, but a sense of just how bad things can be when people of a nation have no single source of strength to draw upon.  

     Which brings me to Madagascar.  The bottom line is this - as beautiful a place as this country is, and as alluring are the people, this is a land so fraught with superstition, cultural anomalies, political corruption and power grabs that indeed "it isn't just different, it's also dreadfully wrong."

     The bottom line is that there has to be a foundational change in the way we the people see who we are and what purpose we have on this earth.  That goes for those in the United States or those in Madagascar.

     Secularism is a proven failure as the agent for this change.  America has been hot for it for the last 40 years.  Europe even longer.  Where has it gotten us?  Again, just consider the news and the dialogue between countrymen.

     Don't think for a second that secularism is devoid of religion.  It is in fact a religion unto itself and the individual is the idol.  With atheism as its backbone, the outlook is sealed.  Just listen to what Richard Dawkins, the movement's famed front-man, pens:  "DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music."

     If indeed we are the sum total of Darwin's formula of time, plus matter, plus chance - cosmic dust fluttering about space, then I ask you, "What's the point?"  The prospects are bleak, the philosophical results catastrophic.  Oh, that we would not dive headlong into the prophet's chastisement, "Let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die."

     But if we're more than that, if we are here for the purpose of good, and that each of us has the incarnate ability to do good, then the possibilities are endless.  Then, it means that there is hope because we aren't here just for a season, but on the first leg of a journey into eternity.  

     And if there is an eternity, then there's more to life than to satisfy the daily whims of self-gratification.  There is a chance for rebirth, to shed the shroud of self-righteousness, rid ourselves of conceit and overcome the allure of chasing the vanity of insatiable pleasures that can never be satisfied. 

     Who is so arrogant that they would dare to make light of the opportunity to impact other people's eternity.  This was the motivation of our founding fathers, best remembered by Nathan Hale's proclamation at his execution in 1776, "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."  Dare I say, that there is absolute truth in what the Son of Man proclaimed, "No greater love is there than this, than a man who is willing to lay down his life for his brother."

     My friends, there has to be truth and it has to be universal.  It cannot be the truth of Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton; it cannot be the truth of the United States or Madagascar; it cannot be your truth or my truth.  It has to be a truth that is independent of any man, yet verifiable and applicable to every man.  It has to be a truth that stirs each and everyone of us to think less of ourselves and more about others.  It has to be about a big picture and not our own fleeting lives.

     Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life."    Pontius Pilate asked, "What is truth?" and walked away without seeking the answer.  My friends, don't walk away.  There's no need to grope for life's meaning.  Ask and He will answer.  Seek and you will find.  Knock and the door will be opened.  Together, as One, He can change the world.  For apart from Him, we can do nothing.

     I love you all.

Comment