5-9-17
Hello,
I am not a very
good waiter…that is, one who waits. I
try and find the fastest lane at the tollbooth, so I don’t have to wait in
traffic. When I go to the grocery store
for a few items, I use the express lane, and I get impatient with people who “shouldn’t”
be there. When I am at a stoplight, I
get a burr under my saddle over those who don’t pay attention and because of
their delayed reaction time cause me to sit through another red light. But the worst time of waiting for me is when
I am sick. I am not a good patient. If I have a headache, I am a bit of a grouch
(maybe more than a bit) waiting for the aspirin to kick in…and if I have the
flu…well, you don’t want to know the moaning and groaning that comes from my
ailing body.
In many parts of
the world people wait for periods longer than either you or I would tolerate to
get the help that they need when they are sick.
I was in Cameroon a handful of years ago and discovered that in many of the
remote villages people who are sick wait weeks for medical care to come, and if
they try to go and get help they have to walk miles, sometimes more than forty
miles, to get help. As you might guess,
because of the time of waiting illnesses often increase and death is sometimes
the result of the passage of time without help.
This year, our
Lenten project at First Lutheran was to come to the aid of those who wait for medical
care. Each Sunday in the children’s
message we talked about the things that are right in most of our homes that
help us when we are sick or hurt: bandages, ointment, aspirin and the like. Working with Lutheran World Relief we
discovered that for $10.00 per day we can keep a first aid station stocked in remote
villages, bringing their wait time to zero.
So, on Easter
Sunday and the first Sunday after Easter, we gathered in the little “Firsts’
Aid” boxes in which people had been collecting money during Lent, and when it
was all counted up we gathered enough funds to keep a first aid station open
for 825 days, that is $8250.00. There
was a rumble of excitement rolling through the congregation as I asked the
kids, “Do you think we gathered in enough money to keep a first aid station
open 1 day? More than that. 20 days?
More than that. 100 days? More than that. 500 days?
More than that. 825 days!
Sometimes we look
at the problems of the world and see how big they are. When we made our final count of our “Firsts’
Aid” offerings, we got a chance to see how big God’s love is that overflows out
of our hearts!
Waiting is hard,
especially when one is ill or hurt.
Hopefully our offerings will be a tangible truth to the words of Isaiah
40, “but those who wait for the Lord
shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they
shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
Have a great week.
God’s grace and peace, (ggap)
Pastor Jerry Nuernberger
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