Someone who gets it ...

I don't know her name.  Can't see her face.  Don't know her story. 

What I do know is that she is homeless in Macon, GA.

I asked my Peru team to collect supplies for the trip: eyeglasses and sunglasses, lotions and suntan lotions, toothbrushes and toothpaste.  When I asked those more experienced that I with Peru about the medical conditions we'd see there, the answer was "they are miserably healthy" ... they don't have much hypertension, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease, but they do have hard lives in harsh conditions (imagine living at 13,000' ... cold winters, harsh sun, and we won't even talk about those RBCs trying to get oxygen around your body).  They haul water and firewood ... daily.  They don't have the latest Serta matresses.  SO, those supplies we bring may actually meet more of a need than the suitcases of antibiotics and meds. 

A secondary reason for asking the team to collect supplies is because I believe strongly that this is a "body" endeavor.  Our students don't have to raise support individually for our mission trips.  All year BCMs raise money collectively for summer missions and when the time comes, students apply and serve all over the world at basically no cost (personally) to them.  I think that's great.  But I also think that it puts us in danger of not sharing our story and not asking for help.  So, I counter this by getting my teams to collect supplies that their church, small group, friends can be part of ... because then they tell the story, then others become part of the story and then, we have more people praying!  When you have to raise support, you send out tons of letters, telling everyone what you are doing and asking them to be a part.  This is my way of encouraging this to happen!

SOOOOO, my Peru team is all busy collecting supplies.  I sent an email to a couple of them looking for some extra room for dental supplies.  This is the response I got:

I'm going to wait until after this weekend to answer that. I've got a lot of people at my church that are bringing supplies this weekend, so I'm not entirely sure how much stuff I have until after then. However, I do have a really cool story. I go to New City Church in downtown Macon, and we really started to reach out to the downtown area and to revitalize our city. We have several homeless people that come to our church every Sunday, and this past Sunday when I got up to remind people to bring toothpaste and toothbrushes, I had one of the homeless ladies come up and give me a bottle of shampoo and a make-up blush thing. She said that it was all she had to give, and I told her that it would be perfect. It was so humbling how she was wanting to give what she had!


I just thought it was really cool how God is already working on this trip, and I thought that I would share.

In His Name,
Catfish

Just like the widow who gave all she had. 

 I don't know her name.  God does ... and He must be so proud.  But, I want her heart ... that gave so sacrificially.  She just summed up the gospel in a nutshell!