Monday, June 27, 2011

DOGGIE WALKERS


I live in a Condo, one in a large number of identical, status quo and politically correct condos. From my kitchen window I can see the street and walk ways. Green lawns, trees and bushes;

I have it all.

The only people action I see is dog walkers. People out walking their dogs ... and from time to time dogs out walking their owners. I walk the bay a couple of times a week and there I see more dog walkers.

Then there are the professional dog walkers taking up to six ... repeat, six dogs at a time. Chihuahuas to Dobermans old and young. These serious dog walkers and dogs generally walk slowly with a group of frustrated dogs on tangled leashes.

Oh yes! Professional walkers with their white rubber gloves and large doggie bags ... waiting for, and hoping for, the inevitable.

Now there are types. Dog types, people types and combination types.

Humans seem to want to get on with the walk while their "best friend" on the other hand ... well, he is interested in sniffing. Sniffing the grass, Sniffing the sidewalk. Sniffing the trees and bushes. Every dog is sniff oriented ... ranging from the short quick hurried sniffs to the long and thoughtful sniff.

The long thoughtful sniffer is most often jerked into reality by his owner

Some committed dog walkers are out for the walk, literally dragging their poor mutt behind ... sad and sniffless!

I notice many of the dogs today, unlike their owners, are de-balled, de-clawed, and de-flee-d ... but still happy as if they had good sense!

Doggie walk! Yipee. Sniff time! Pee time!

Yesterday I saw a sad sight. A very determined dog walker was leading his dog ... now I'm talking leading! His little dog was obviously a “has been” ... that is, he was once a male.

One thing a male or former male dog just has to do is pee on things. I mean it's in him and it's gotta get out! If something is pee-able, he will pee on it.

Sad sight ... nothing more pathetic than a dog on three legs, rear leg held high being dragged while peeing. He was hopping along on his three little legs peeing irresponsibly everywhere. Peeing in places no dog had ever pee'd on before!

Canine humiliation! Thoughtless canine cruelty!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

THOSE HELD IN THE BLACK HOLE OF HELL


Admittedly we go where few go and reach down into pockets of filth! Human Jetsam! Interacting with those living in urine and vomit splashed alleys among scattered needles, bottles and old plastic sacks of paint and contact-cement.

People that come alive at night.

A smelly, dirty collection of people that no one wants to associate with, and for good reason. Who wants to invest in losers? Who wants to sow seeds in this weed patch? ... and who wants to support people who do?

Why do we go to this undeserving segment of society?

Why?

For God's sake! As Christians our light and ministry of love is meant to penetrate the darkness through the credibility earned by association with these people.

In the dark, where lights belong!

We aren't always accepted. We aren't always loved. Love and respect are earned and it isn't always easy.

And more than that, it takes time.

One thing for sure, Christians are not called to be a light seated corporally forming a candelabra of incredible divine wattage under a cross.

Indeed there needs to be a time for "church"; there is a time for worship, for meetings and Bible study" BUT there is a time that we Christians should simply BE THE CHURCH; His people scattered like salt among the world ... scattered like lights in the darkness.

God's random, yet Divine method. A method that still puzzles Theologians.

Sounds a little like the Believers back in the Antioch days. in those days Believers didn't hide in a building waiting for "seekers" ... somehow they were taught that the Church was them. (Acts 26:28)

The world could see the difference because it was obvious. And our name "Christian" began.

It's time again, that the world sees Christians in action.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

I FOUND A SON I DIDN'T KNOW I HAD.


Sometimes you become a father and don't even know it ... now that doesn't sound right does it?

Follow me on this.

I saw Oskar walking up the narrow street in Grupo Mexico and pulled over to say "Hi." He smiled, came over to the car leaned into the window ... and we talked.

He wanted to thank me for being his father image and for the attention I had given him. I was the male he targeted. In his early life he had many "step-fathers" as his mother had many boyfriends. Who his actual father was, he didn't know.

When I first met young Oskar he was living on a dry hillside in a little one room shed of squalor. Small, no windows, and, of course trash. He was taking care of his little brother who stood there looking at me. His pampers were loaded and he was dirt from head to toe.

But Oskar was just a kid himself on "little brother" duty.

We became friends. He went to our Bible Club and came to camp.

One night I became his doctor. I remember that one well.

I was the last car left. We had finished our Bible Club program and I saw that the doors were locked, generator off, lights out. It was very dark as I began to pull out and head for home.

A few neighborhood teens, gang members, stopped me and they were holding young Oskar. It was dark but by my lights I could see Oskar bleeding and crying a bit.

"Hey, von" one teen yelled. "Oskars hurt!"

It seemed that he was running around in the dark with some of his friends and caught his eye-lid on the barbed-wire and it cut the eyelid completely across and the top part of his eyelid was just hanging.

Oh boy! What do you do in a situation like that? Take him to the Mexican Red Cross? Those intern doctors would ruin the kids eyelid. He really needed a specialist. A plastic surgeon. No way at that time of night to get a specialist in Tijuana!

Time for a quick prayer and common sense.

I grabbed a flashlight, tube of Neo-Sporin, some Kleenex and we went to Oskar's house. He was twelve, a Mexican and he didn't cry much.

Oskar's mother opened the door and looked a bit startled. "Where'd his bed" we asked. Oskar's bed was an old door in the corner with a blanket over it. We laid the boy down. I found another blanket and fashioned it like a pillow and told him to just relax and close is eyes. His mother was holding the candle.

(No electricity in all of Grupo Mexico at that time. )

Wetting some Kleenex I carefully washed around the bad eye and very carefully pushed his torn eyelid up to butt against his top eyelid. Held it for a short time. It stayed there. It held! PTL!

I told his mother to stay there and watch all night while he slept, in case he would move around or place his hand to his eye as he slept. It was not to be touched, his head was not to move!

As I look back ...

I hadn't washed my hands. The water was Tijuana tap water. No gloves. No antibiotics. Candle light.

Just God.

I left with a prayer that Oskar's eyelid would heal. Driving home I fought my doubts.

It worked! Today you can't even see a scar.

Oskar's a Christian. He has a wife and son and a small business there in Groupo and still has that wonderful smile.

Nice to stop and get thanked by a "son" I didn't know I had.

Monday, June 13, 2011

ORPHAN'S SHOES


Last night at the orphanage I sat on the bed while Gabriel, four, was putting on his pajamas. I grabbed his bare foot and tickled it, he laughed and pulled it away.

I tried helping him put on his socks, but he pulled his foot away and said "I can do it!" and he slowly and sloppily put both of his socks on ... four year old style.

Then he handed me his shoe.  Now that was a challenge he couldn't muster. And I found out why. His shoelaces were all knotted up, and it took a while for me to un-knot the shoe laces.

He watched me rather impatiently.

Then it was time to get his foot and sloppy sock into this small shoe. Force balanced with patience.  Indeed this was a double challenge. His foot just didn't want to go into the very small shoe, I stretched the shoe and widened it, pulled the tongue up and finally forced his foot into it. The second shoe seemed to go on a bit easier ... then I re-tied both shoe laces. He stood up, looked at me, smiled and he was off ... doing things a four-year old boy in P.J's does!

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

PEPE IS GETTING A NEW BODY!


Here he is sitting happily in "his new body" a card-board prototype!

Oh, how I wish I could give him a real new body ... hopefully God will give him his new body in the future. (Pray for this.)

This is a cardboard mock-up body ... hopefully, little by little, we'll turn it into a cute little car (Blue) with lights and a horn. (He steers it by push-buttons.) This card-board body will sit on his little moveable platform.

I just wanted to see how it fit him.

He likes his MP ... moveable platform. It fits a small boy in a small room. He can spin it in a circle, and that helps.

I first met Pepe about eight years ago, in Zona Norte. Hortensia took me to visit him. Their home (or room) was almost as small as baby Pepe. Just one small, dark room.

When I saw the baby, I knew there was something terribly wrong ... but we could do nothing about it.

I remember when he was about seven ... when the doctors told him he would never walk. No, he would never play football. He would never be a normal boy.

He was depressed for days.

But Pepe bounced back.

I remember him learning how to slowly write and draw. Ever so slowly. But he persisted.

I remember when he excitedly told me he won a dance contest in school ... Dance contest? "Yeah, watch," and he jerked around and beat his legs to the rhythm of the dance music.

I guess dance is just how you look at it.

And the time he told me he could run? Run? "Yeah, watch me" ... and he rolled fast across the floor ... and popped up with a big smile.

Yesterday he didn't want us to carry him into his bedroom, there was about a nine inch step up to the bedroom ... "watch! I'll get up myself" ... and he did!

Pepe hasn't a lot of body ... but he has a lot of guts.

And a big smile!

P.S. Here are a video of Pepe playing in his cart ...

Friday, June 03, 2011

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING?


If I'm trying to compensate my failure to DO THE WORD, by reading and studying even more of The Word, am I not deceiving myself and placing myself in jeopardy of Divine judgment?

If I know the word, yet fail to act on what I know ... how is knowing more and yet doing less, going to benefit His Kingdom? It isn't.

Isn't it strange that His mandate can some how get to the head and even to the heart ... yet never filter down to the feet?

Am I not condemning myself by gaining more knowledge that I fail to act on? Will I indeed be judged by that very knowledge?

Can I compare knowledge to fuel? What's the reason to store fuel if I don't intend to use it?

There was more than one reason God said to the Israelites, "Don't store the manna!"

Eat and share.

More schooling, more degrees, more study, more and more knowledge.

Libraries and bookstores are full of Bibles and great Christian books, yet the streets show no sign of God.

Bookstores and libraries and are full of Bibles and great Christian literature and DVD's, a mega-potential of light! Yet the streets are still full of darkness.

Churches, it seems, are on every corner, yet the streets are still void of hope.

Christianity is spelled out on the streets, by "doers of the Word."

It seems the physical dimension of Spiritual Christianity, is woe-fully missing the streets of life.

Wasn't Jesus a man of the streets?

The Church started when it spilled out on the street, or am I missing something?

Was not "Christian" actually coined on the street, by the people in the streets of Antioch as they watched Believers doing the Word?

Believers doing God's Word outside.

"Be doers of the Word, not "knowers" only" ... Jesus brother James spelled it out in his short book. "James 1:22"

Divine perversion?

Could perversion be knowing more and more of the truth, benefiting from that truth and loving the Truth Giver ... yet unwilling to exercise that truth outside ...

  • Knowing Love, yet not doing love?
  • Knowing compassion, yet not doing compassion?
  • Knowing grace, yet not expressing it?
  • Knowing forgiveness, yet not forgiving?

Therefor, the challenge today is getting our feet to the street! After all what are my feet there for?