hurricane Katrina

wow! I continue to be impacted by the devastation that hurricane Katrina caused. Multitudes of people losing everything including jobs, homes, family members, and lifetime savings, etc. My heart goes out to the suffering and also to the multitudes who are trying to help in whatever way they can.

It also makes me reflect about my own life and the fact that we are supposed to be sojourners on the earth. In Jesus we are aliens and strangers in this world. In essence, we are just people passing through. And yet, I spend so much time accumulating stuff on the way. I lost nothing in hurricane Katrina but I am deeply impacted by those who did.

My thought is that we should go ahead and get rid of our stuff knowing that it is inevitable that we lose it anyway.

Christine and I feel like the Spirit is moving in our hearts, some of which is prompted by hurricane Katrina, and also because of our prayers of late asking God to reveal anything that is hindering our effectiveness in the kingdom. All of this being said, God is moving our hearts to live more simple lives in which we can travel light and bless others more.

I do not know what this will look like and there probably is no destination when we will be able to say we have arrived. I do know that we have a long way to go.

We live and work among a people who are incredibly poor. We struggle with creating our own welfare system by which people come to depend upon us for their daily needs. And at the same time recognize that people do have needs and are often in dire straits and we need to help them.

We are praying that the spirit will continue to work in our hearts to mold and shape us into the likeness of Jesus who became poor that we might become rich.

We are currently reading freedom of simplicity by Foster. An amazing book. As we work our way through it I hope to share some of the thoughts that impact us the most.