BEYOND OUR WALLS                                                                                                                

August  2005                   Missions Bulletin of First Presbyterian Church, Las Cruces, N.M                Vol. 7,   No. 8

SAY!  DO YOU THINK COMPASSION HAS A THING TO DO WITH FIRST PRESBYTERIAN’S MISSION BUDGET?

            In one sense, as some like to say, everything the church does is mission.  But don’t we need to grapple with the reasons we serve and give a little more deeply than that?  Should it not have something to do with our relationship with our Lord?  Do we pray for and send money to outreach organizations in several places around the world  because we really are compassionate? Do we do it because of a sense of obligation without much if any compassion? 

            Maybe you recall a message our Christian Education Director, Racquel Tomacruz, brought us early this  summer. It wasn’t a message of comfort. She asked us about our compassion or lack of it with regard to the body’s, souls, and spirits of people in need.  Her definition of compassion was drawn partly from passages about Jesus in chapters 14, 15, and 20 in Matthew’s gospel.  In each instance, she pointed out, Jesus felt compassion and then did something about it.  She also called our attention to Christ’s heart going out to the widow whose son had died, as related in Luke 7:13.  As his heart went out to her, he did something about it. He comforted her and restored her son to life.

            From such passages she defined compassion in terms of a person’s heart going out to someone, followed by action to relieve the situation.

            All of us have experienced this kind of thing in our personal relationships with others, have we not?  Especially, when a person in distress is someone we love, our heart goes out to them and we  do something for him or her.  The reality of the our feelings is confirmed by our taking action.

            But isn’t it also true that we feel sad or disturbed about someone’s need and do nothing about it, either because we won’t or, for legitimate reasons, we can’t?  Our heart goes out to people, but what then?  It’s an uncomfortable thing to think about.  Some decades back a retired couple who enjoyed visiting the various villages and towns of Mexico followed the practice of, first, staying in a nice hotel for a time, where the wife would remain while her husband scouted the community to locate its poverty-stricken areas.  They would avoid those areas during their visit because the wife was so deeply disturbed by human suffering.  She felt pity, but, possibly,  not true compassion

            O.K. then!  Why are we helping a number of people to minister to the bodies, souls and spirits of people in Africa, India, Japan, Las Cruces, Sunland Park, Indonesia, Brazil, Singapore, China, Mexico, and in various countries of the 10/40 window? How much real compassion is involved?  Do we feel sad that there are people who will be separated from God for eternity because they have never allowed Jesus to own them?  Is that why we support our mission budget?  Do we feel sad that there are women in India who spend their lives cleaning other’s toilets and suffer abuse at the hands of their social superiors and their male relatives?  Do we feel sad that there are people right here in Las Cruces living in desperation because of the brokenness of their lives?  Is that why we give in support of First Presbyterian’s mission budget?  Can it be argued  that we give to missions because our hearts go out to those in physical, emotional, and spiritual distress? Only each of us as individuals can say, but the suggestion here is that it is an issue for us to think about and talk to our Lord about.  It is also up to each of us to find out just what our hearts going out to people should mean in terms of our hands going out.  It’s difficult for us to know what really goes on in our own hearts and what it should mean for the ways we live. 

            It is rewarding to see  members of this congregation “doing something  about” the compassion they feel. The work done by some at the Community of Hope soup kitchen,  at St. Luke’s Health Care, and the provision of supplies for Cristo Rey in Sunland Park are examples.  Remember also two members of our congregation who have donated their time and expertise in Central America and in Africa to help those  with dental needs. There are other examples.   We are rightly pleased with such compassion, yet the issues are so complicated and so personal that we need to let God help us examine ourselves on them.  None of us are in position to make negative judgements about others, but all of us need to look within ourselves with our Lord’s guidance.  

            There is evidence of felt and active compassion reflected in our church budget.  It goes without saying that it is imperfect, but it is there.  We help support Jorge and Socorro Alvarado’s evangelistic, social,  and development  ministries in the border cities of Mexico. We help Doug and Sherry Barron use the JESUS Film  and English as a Foreign Language workshops in widely scattered places to bring people the hope of the gospel for eternal fellowship with God and healing of broken lives.  We donate to our Presbytery’s camping program in the Sacramento Mountains, where people are helped to grow personally and spiritually for outreach through the years.  We contribute to the spiritual and personal growth of Christian students at New Mexico State University through our support of the Bridge Campus ministry under the leadership of David Sallee.  And  we pray about and give financial assistance to support the evangelistic and related  activities of Andy and Judy Carrick in far away Japan.

            Here in Las Cruces, again, several of our members have gone to extra effort to help the Christian Day Nursery in its ministry  to the  pre-school children of low income families, and we keep  the mission in our church  budget to help it along financially.  Not so far away, in Sunland Park, we help support our Presbytery’s mission to the economically and culturally disadvantaged of that place. We also help Philip and Elizabeth Prasad as they lead in bringing tens of thousands in India to Christ and help the new Christians to live more rewarding lives. We help Donna Evans in her Bible translation and educational ministries to the Ledo people of Sulawesi.

            We help support Ricardo and Reyna Green as Ricardo teaches at Fortaleza Seminary in Brazil, conducts evangelistic ministries there and trains others in church planting. We help support Tom and Judy Harvey in Singapore as Tom works at Trinity Theological College to prepare Christian leaders for Asia.  We keep John and Gwen Haspels in our budget so they can witness and serve the Suri and the Baale of Ethiopia.  We are involved in the work of Ron and Donna Pontier as they provide transportation for missionaries and others in East Africa. We help the administrators and teachers at Priscilla Bible School in Yucatan in their preparation of young Mexicans to serve and lead the churches of Mexico. Funds from our budget go to the work of Bill and Susan Soldwisch in Tijauna and Todd and Tricia Reinschmidt of Juárez as they do evangelistic, educational, and relief work along the Mexican border. Then, there is the evangelistic, discipling, and material ministry to the needy of Las Cruces performed by the Gospel Rescue Mission under Bill Wheeler’s leadership.

            How and to what extent are the feeling of compassion and the action that completes true Christian compassion related to each other in our church’s involvement in these outreach activities, so many of which are so far away?  Our Lord will help us with this question if we ask.

Return to home page

Send comments, suggestions, and requests to Alex. F. Burr or send email to aburr @ zianet.com.
Technical assistance and net access provided by zianet.com .
Last update 2006-09-30 22:50:49