Man, last week was crazy.  I have such good stuff to write about, but no time to do it.

To set this up, two Sundays ago, Didi talked about engaging the world.  If you missed it or need a refresher, go to the new test website at mtcarmel.parkapps.com and go to past sermons and check it out.

So the story begins last Friday,  July 25^th.  I took on the ambitious project of digging out my foundation wall because I was getting moisture in my basement.  With a new baby taking up so much space in the house, the basement has to be a place where things can happen for me personally.  Moisture is no good.  So I dug, and dug, and dug, till a huge blister developed on my hand, so I stopped.  Saturday I dug a little more.  Not much.  Jill started to get worried that I wouldn’t follow through and we would have a big pile of dirt on our driveway for ever, like last year when I dug our patio.  Sunday was awesome.  Steve Hartley came over and he is a digging machine.  I say, who needs a backhoe when you have Steve Hartley.  With Steve’s help we found the bottom of the foundation, at a little more than 4 and a half feet.  But that was half of length of the house.  I still had the rest to go.  Monday, with rain imminent, I left work early to get to digging.  But I had to bust out the side walk.  So I used my sledge hammer and quickly dispatched the 3’ by 3’ sidewalk to my side door.  Progress was quick now.  I dug and dug and finally knocked through the space where the sidewalk had been.  After about 5 hours of digging I had my hole done.  I had never accomplished such a feat so quickly.

The reason I’m telling you this is because as I dug, I made some observations.  First, I could only make so much of an impact from the driveway. I could dig to almost 2 feet down from the safety of ground level.  But when Steve showed up, he jumped down in the hole, and was able to make a much greater, and much faster impact.  And as I saw this it made me realize, to engage the world we have to get down in the hole.  Our influence on our neighbors and friends is only a little when we keep them at arms length.  But when we get in and get dirt, in the world, then we really can see God work in awesome ways.

I have some friends, pretty much my favorite people I know.  Their names are Ruco and Kristi van der Merwe.  They help me to see what it’s like to really be in the world and make an impact.  In my last blog, I said I had two things I learned while I was in Florida.  This is the second.  Ruco and Kristi just got back for time serving in the Peace Corp in The Gambia, (that’s in Africa, I had never heard of it either before they went).  As we hung out while they were home, they told me all about The Gambia, how it was 130 degrees in the shade during the day, how they had to carry their water and live in a mud hut.  How the country was majority Muslim.  But what struck me the most, they said they left the Peace Corp early, not because of any of those things, but because they were forbidden to talk about their faith.  Ruco told me that when you look around Africa, their are tons of people doing good, bringing food, aid, supplies, the whole nine yards.  He wanted to be able to tell people why he was doing it.  He was not doing it just for doing good’s sake.  He knows a Savior that other people in Africa need to know.  

That was an incredible realization.  When we here in the US say that if we are good people, then out non-Christian coworkers and neighbors and friends will see how we live and want that for their lives, we are kidding ourselves.  We don’t lack basic necessities of life here, we have everything we will generally need to live.  But what Ruco said about Africa made me realize, even these people that have huge needs, just providing for the needs is not enough.  We have a huge responsibility to be “God” to those around us.  In Exodus, Moses tells God that he can’t lead because he has a stutter, and God gets mad.  He tells Moses He’s tired of his excuses, and that his brother Aaron will speak for him, to Pharaoh and to the people of Israel.  And then God, surprisingly, says something profound.  Exodus 4.16 says, “Moreover, he shall speak for you to the people; and he will be as a mouth for you and you will be as God to him.”  God tells Moses that he is going to be a real example of  who God is to those who need to see Him.  That’s us now.  Today, people need to see God’s love from US.  Where else will they get it?  

Doing good things when engaged with the world is not enough.  We need to be vocal about why we do what we do, because God wants everyone to come back to him.

Thank you God for showing me through hole digging and friends from college who You are, what You need from me, and how You can love through me!