As many of you know I just got back from my first missions trip and it was a doozy. I knew from TV and the News how bad some countries had it but I had no idea I could actually help. I signed up for the missions trip hoping to make a difference but was unsure that I could actually make one till I went.
Now this thread is not exclusive to Christian's who I would urge to go on a missions trip but also to Athiests and non believers who should sign up for humanitarian missions and deploy world wide too. One thing I noticed in Thailand is the lack of Non-Christian humanitarian groups.
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Christian Part
Alright so the Bible specifically says go out into the world and make fishers of men. A missions trip is part humanitarian and part spreading of the gospel. Not so much prosteletising as showing God's love, we usually didn't go out into a community with the goal of converting everyone, we went in to help the people while letting them know we were Christian.
It is every Christian's duty to go into the world and help those less fortunate. Matthew 25:35-40
35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
The passage in Matthew clearly states that Christian's serving the needy are serving God. Later in the passage it talks about Christian's who do not serve others and help the needy. Now some may say that they can't help now I was unsure of how much I could help.
But I went into the slums with a mission team to hand out rice. Man oh man was it moving people were in tears when recieving the rice. Most of them collect garbage all day some making less then a dollar a day. When we gave them the rice they freaked out, I have never seen people that thankful in my life not even on thanksgiving. The people asked us why we were giving them rice and we replied that Jesus loves them and wants us to help them, right aways many of them asked for prayer from our Jesus, though they were buddhist they wanted us to pray for them. I prayed for at least a hundred people in the slums while I was their.
Anyways, you don't have to go to another country to do missions either. Many people here on this forum come from poorer countries with their own slums, others of us are from wealthier countries and can go to poorer places to help. The Kingdom of God needs to get out their and help the poor people of the world.
I myself am signing up with YWAM to likely enter longer term missions, after seeing what I can do to help others its very hard for me to now turn my back on them. If you are Christian then it is not only your duty but your God given right to go out into the world and help those less fortunate. It may be hard work but you can enjoy it too, seeing those people's faces light up was amazing.
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Athiests and non-Christians
Now as I said this topic isn't just for Christian's. When I was in the slums I did search for Non-Christian organisations. I wanted to see what the athiests and other non-Christian's were doing in the slums. Where are the athiests, athiests are people too and so are buddhists etc...etc.... Now this didn't make me think too negatively about Athiests at least no more then I already do. It just made me wonder where they are, their are Christian child sponsorship groups throughout the country, their are missionary humanitarian groups but no Athiests to be seen.
Infact food out their is so cheap. one dollar will buy 3-KG of Pineapple. or a KG of pork. Yet I didn't hear about or see even any local buddhist organisations handing out food or helping. Infact I went to the temples and saw shit loads of food just rotting infront of idols. I wonder how Buddhists who are supposed to believe in Karma and helping others could waste their food giving it to an idol while the people living in the slum only kilometers away are starving to death.
Its not only Christian's that should be helping the world. Now I know their are other non-Christian organisations in work around the world. So my question to you is why aren't you helping the world in one of these organisations? Whats stopping you from donating or deploying to help the Peace Corp or another organisation.
Sure Athiests don't have Jesus to live like, they have no default moral basis to go out and help the world. But I don't believe for a second that Athiests don't care, so think for a second could you be helping those around the world?
If your not athiest and are buddhist for example, does your country have a major slum? Does it have poor people living on less then a dollar a day. Now wouldn't the great teacher Buddha rather have you giving your food and money to help those poor dying people rather then giving your food to a statue letting it rot away or maybe instead of buying incence to burn or flowers to lay maybe Buddha would rather see you spending that money to help the poor people in your country? Isn't that what Karma and Ying and Yang are all about, wouldn't the great teacher rather see you helping others selflessly rather then wasting your resources on some statues?
Muslims, I know muslim organisations all over the world are helping people in their countries perhaps as much as Christians. So if your Muslim whats stopping you from deploying on a humanitarian mission? Or how about Jewish?
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The point I'm trying to make is that if you have enough money to live off of, your better off then a huge hunk of the world. Now its easy to just ignore the rest of the world and only think of yourself, but despite what some people say you can make a difference. Maybe you can't save the world but you could save a handful of people's lives.
I spent alittle over 2,700$ on my trip and I gave out at least a hundred bags of rice with my team, we gave out about a half dozen other meals to the slum children and played with them. We actually improved their lives and another team arrived a few days before we left to keep up the aid and keep the rice coming and help the people.
So the question is whats stopping you Christian or not from helping people in your country or around the world?
-JC7
"In God We Trust - In Games We Play " - Joel Reimer
