...Don't be polluted by this world.

We have arrived for what is my third trip in this wonderful, but little known and lesser understood country of 3.5 million. For those who have never been here, it makes little sense for someone from East Texas to make his way to this place during what is Spring Break for many, unless you understand the context under which I and 12 others come. We don't come because this is a vacation mecca just waiting to be discovered, we don't come here because of the allure of great shopping and amazing amusement areas. We come here because God asked each of us to follow through with the word the apostle James gave the early church in James 1:27. "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress..." I know as you read that scripture, you think..."Okay...okay so you're building beds for orphans...that was an easy scripture to quote that fits your circumstance..."
The truth is, that's not really the part of the scripture that's most applicable to what we're doing here. The last part of James 1:27 (which is rarely quoted) says..."and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

Why is this more applicable than the other portion of the verse?...for this reason...just as a body of water needs an inlet to allow water to fill the reservoir, it must have an outlet to sustain life. Without the outlet, the water becomes stagnant and the precious life-giving liquid becomes a cess pool of polluted sludge. The seeming, counter-productive out-flow of water is actually the very thing that ensures a constant influx of new, refreshing nourishment.

In the very same way, this group of 12 that I am serving with this week, have made the decision to let the time, talents, and other resources they might have flow from themselves to those less fortunate in the orphanage in Tranistria, Moldova. It would have been so very easy for all of us to use those resources for ourselves and in essence be polluted by the world as we have been so many times before: To become complacent;
predictable; stagnant.

May this choice to follow the instruction of James have eternal significance this week for those children we have been allowed to share life with. We pray that the love that God has so graciously given to us will flow out to those who so desperately need it.

May God Bless you! Continue to pray for us as we serve this week and may Jesus be exalted in this place.