April 25, 2011
Hi Everyone,
Today is a special day to celebrate ~ Resurrection Sunday. And it is the perfect day for me to reflect on why we at Aslan do what we do. I’ve been called a lot of things in my lifetime, but one of the most offensive has been a “do gooder.” What people mean by this is that I am doing good for goodness sake.
With the darkness and tragedy I’ve experienced in this life, the last thing I’m doing is good only for goodness sake. If there’s no higher purpose at the end of this present darkness than ashes and dust, it is hard to comprehend why anyone bothers to do good, much less live another day. It is only living through tears, hope and the fumes of faith, that I press on to a higher calling.
So many Christians love to “skip to the end” of Easter, which is the Resurrection. And in the process, they gloss over the pain, sorrow and indescribable suffering that Jesus endured to arrive at the Resurrection. We were “bought with a price,” the Apostle Peter says. And that price was more than the agony Jesus suffered nailed to the Cross. I once heard it said that the Cross is at the very center of eternity ~ that it spans eternity from end to end. Although some people seem to think so, the Eternal God was not taken by surprise when man sinned and thereby forced Him to suddenly come up with a “Plan B.” Before the foundations of the earth, God’s plan for the Cross were already in motion.
People in Haiti have a faith that is tested in fire, which is the only way to test the true worth of any metal. They understand the Cross. They live each day knowing that death lurks around each and every corner. The water they drink exposes them to death through typhoid, hepatitis or cholera. Every mosquito that lands on their skin may transfer deadly malaria or dengue fever to them. A simple cold can become bronchitis and then pneumonia. A case of pink-eye, left untreated, may blind their child. A minor cut on their child’s skin can cover over a fungal infection that will eventually grow into a cancerous tumor. My little friend, Cela (pictured on the left on March 16th), is sick with some new infection almost every time I return to Haiti. We can only hope and pray that the antibiotics that Dr. Dave and our nurses gave him in March will help his body truly heal this time. My friends in Haiti like Joseph Israel are truly people of faith. Show me someone who has suffered greatly, and I will show you someone who has great faith.
I am grateful to all of you who read this blog and who contribute to the cause of Aslan. Everything that I do . . . everything that all of us at Aslan do in Haiti and in America is done to honor the One who suffered and died for us and for every one of our sins and inadequacies. I will leave you with what I believe are some of the most profound words ever written. They were penned by a young 28-year-old missionary who gave his life along the Curaray River in Equador in 1956:
“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
Each and every act of kindness ~ a child taken to a doctor, rice given to a hungry family, rent paid for 4 orphaned boys, tuition, uniforms and books to sponsor a child in school, a pair of used glasses so that an elderly man can read his Bible ~ we do because He lives.
Craig
P.S. “Higher Up and Farther In” is taken from The Last Battle, by C.S. Lewis. After a tragic train accident that takes their lives, Peter, Edmond and Lucy find themselves in the real Narnia (Heaven), where they will forever grow higher up and farther in to God’s love.
