Belief In Motion

Reflection from Jon Cook after his 2nd Mission Trip:

I returned a couple of weeks ago from my second missions trip to Romania. Several of you have been asking me to write down my thoughts on what I took from this trip. I still haven’t processed everything yet so, here are my thoughts so far…

Things are the same here. It's weird that these two places, America and Romania, exist at the same time. To think that one day I just packed my bags, filled a car with gas, drove to the airport, got on a jet, and the next day...the very next day; I was standing talking to a girl that had been abandoned, raped, and beaten...several times. She was cold, hungry, homeless, and hated. And she was living in a place where she was helpless to do anything about it; in a country that didn't care. In a country where abandoned babies are moved from room to room and from hospital to hospital so they can be hidden from the world. In a city where people live crammed in communist era housing projects with 20 families sharing a bathroom. In a place where a boy who is autistic is shipped off to a "special place" in the mountains because he is too difficult for society. My son is autistic. Then, after a week of seeing things like that every day, I just packed my bags, we filled a car with gas, drove to the airport, and flew to Miami. Miami. So I say, "My Merciful God what did I ever do to deserve any of what I have...or where I live?" Being in Romania is almost like a dream. I mean, to see children walking around in the snow wearing only sandals because they don't have any shoes; or to try and understand that they're hungry with NO way of getting food...NO way of getting food. I can't process that. You know it's all real and yet at the same time there's just something about it that seems almost make-believe; cold and hungry and sick and hopeless, that's just something I can't get my American mind around. I am not hungry. I have clothes and shoes. I have everything I need and so much more. I am loved. How do you tell a homeless gypsy they're loved when people hate them? When they're raped and beaten and hated and have to band together with others who are raped and beaten and hated to have protection? How do you tell a child they have a Father in heaven who loves them and is desparately wanting them to have a relationship with him...when they're abandoned? When their parents leave them at birth and they're locked in an orphanage and their only future is to be turned out onto the streets when they're 18? Eighteen and on the streets with no family, no friends, no home, no job, no hope, nothing...just a future of being beaten, and raped, and hated. There is just such an overwhelming need for so much. Such an overwhelming need for the perfect light of Christ to illuminate a hopeless people to give them love and joy and peace...like He did our country. And then, you come back to this land of Starbucks and palm trees where God is coffeshop talk and dress-up on Sunday mornings. The Great "I AM", this Creator of the Universe, Mankinds Sacrifice, his Hope, Love, Peace, Light, Life... has to be shared by someone who is hip or affluent to have any validity. He has to compete for our attention? I am overwhelmed with feelings. I don't know where to start. We have been blessed immeasurably by God Almighty far beyond what any human being deserves. His Grace is still on this country. Why then, do you have to touch someone emotionally with a song or picture or a clever presentation so they'll be willing to give something to help a starving child? Even more, how do you convince someone to die to themselves and to their desires so that they can be made alive in Christ and then be used by Him to show His light and love to the world? We have so much and we see so little. I pray for less so that we will see more. I offer again myself to God. To His plan. To His will. To be used as He pleases. Knowing that He can use me to show His light in a very dark place…here. And He can use me to show love and support to those He calls to the other dark places of the world. We are His beacons. We can do all things through Christ Jesus who gives us strength.