Live music is like a match. It just has the ability to do some things that other forms of message don’t. I think that’s mainly because traditionally while the preacher is preaching people aren’t *talking along with him*. Music is that one thing that people who are all different can sing along too and you get a little swept up in the whole thing.
It was a great concert. I wanted more music. But it was great.
Saturday we drove back home via a shoehouse and Gettysburg. On route 30 between York and Gettysburg is a town called New Oxford. In New Oxford there is a little café/coffee shop/bakery (all three in one). The café is called Holey Joes. Just drive to the roundabout and park your car. It isn’t hard to find. In the coffee shop there were displays up with bible verses and scarves and other
handmade goods from Haiti. It’s the typical thing-why only help people when you can actually give them jobs and help them continuously earn a living. It’s something that the foreign mission field has done a good job with but the domestic mission field lags far far behind in. Too often we still have the message that being a jobless American somehow means you are lazy and must be on drugs.
So on one of the displays was a map that basically said ‘put a pin on the map where you have been on a missions trip’. It was an impressive board. Places from New Zealand to Alaska had pins in them. Even small ‘unsafe’ countries like the Maldives or Afghanistan had pins in them. Naturally my eyes focused on my field of calling, France.
Nothing. There was a hole, where either someone had misplaced a pin or the pin got moved but there was nothing. All around it were pins but nothing there. To be fair there were all sorts of countries with nothing, a huge swath of the Muslim world (from Mauritania all the way across to Iran) was totally empty. Siberia, with the exception of a few pins, empty.
I realize that Sub-Saharan Africa probably has a few more people than Siberia but pretty much that was it. Everywhere else was covered somehow. Every mission field has value. Every empty place needs more. Not so that we can say how awesome we are or what great experience we’ve had. This is not the Peace Corps and this is not your spring break destination. This is valuable work. Priceless work for priceless people that you might never meet. There are senders and there are goers but we are all doers. Each field has value and each field deserves attention. We believe that France, as a place to love and share, is a field of vast importance.
We believe in partnering with churches and individuals because we know (and you know) that the world is more than just a rectangle waiting for push pins. If you are interested in sharing in our vision through financial support click the financial partners link above to find out more.