Grateful for Grace

Fifth in a series.

Tuscany Girls Bible Study (Kelly, Cookie, Marguerite, Sharon, Margaret, Gaye and Patti)

Acts 13:47 & Ephesians 2:8

Beauty Shop

When we stop and consider the verse from Acts, we realize that Christianity at that time in the world was at its mustard seed beginnings, confined to a very minuscule area of the globe when contrasted to present times. Today it is the faith that keeps the world on its axis. Certainly, Christianity’s influence played a critical role in the founding of our nation we call America. Yet today Christianity here and around the world is hanging by threads. For today’s disciples it is not really any different than the original 12 were experiencing during the time of Acts. I believe the Gentiles in today’s context is- the world- of course, the light is Jesus and our salvation is He who is Love. Haiti is only a three-hour flight from Atlanta and we did not even change time zones. There are times on the ground here however, when one feels as if he is at the end of the earth. 

Haiti Deaf Academy

If you were to revisit 1 Corinthians 13 in the King James Version, you would see the word charity used multiple times in the context of love. If one was to explore the roots of that word they would find a connection to gratitude or gratefulness. Today we visited Haiti Deaf Academy and we heard few spoken words but there was much conversation going on with these children. The sign we saw most often today was two fingers touching the chin and the hand then extending toward us. The were saying thank you! They did not even have to make this gesture for the entire team was already being washed in His Grace. As has been the case the past five days the mission team was being saved over and over by His Grace!

Let the little children

My contribution to the team this week has been preparing eyeglasses in our optical clinic. I have had dozens of occasions to hand a finished packaged pair of glasses to the patient. It would always, 100%, every time, be immediately followed with a humble twinkle in the eye soft-spoken, “Merci.” Merci is the French word for thank you. The is no doubt in my mind God showers Grace upon us, His mercy, a gift that says, “Thankyou good and faithful servant.”

Father, may we always be of a disciple mindset contributing to the expansion of your Kingdom to the ends of the Earth. Amen

Bradford Bosworth 

September, 2018

Sisters, Drivers and Teddy Bears

(Final in a series) 

Angel Guides

Romans 12:2 (NIV)

John Fleming & John McCorkle

Our mission team has arrived back in the USA. For me it happened in earnest this morning waking up in my own bed. Starting with emotional goodbyes to the young men guides we have grown to love, to proceeding through the Haitian side of an endless maze of airport check ins and customs inspections, the journey road felt full of pot holes and speed bumps much like the streets of Port-au-Prince. Then a somewhat bumpy flight followed by the Atlanta side customs process and we were back on familiar soil with traffic lights, paved roads and, most of the time, a right of way. I thought of the atmospheric reentry that astronauts experience when they return to our planet. The pattern of the world we experienced in Haiti does not conform to the pattern of the world we live in here in Georgia.

Our mission to Haiti was about healing. Yes, it was medical in substance with the subscribing of fungal cream and blood pressure pills all of which provide corrective physical healing over time. This is the healing of our worlds whether Port-au-Prince or Atlanta. The true healing that took place on this trip was expressed in a young sister, another of Abba’s daughters, who could not hear or speak, teaching us to sign “I love you”. It was healing played out watching our adept driver learn to swim in the Caribbean and opening his eyes under salt water for the first time. For this writer, it was a big hug from a three-hundred-pound misty eyed teddy bear who would be a security guard.

This week was about the healing that is born of the Holy Spirit. It is a healing that cannot help but to travel both ways. It is the healing that transforms the giver into the recipient and the student into the teacher. It is the renewing of our minds. It is the testing and approving of God’s will for us. And we know for certain we are abiding in His good, pleasing and perfect will.  Se’ yon bil bagay!

Father thank you for always being present and ready to heal us when we conform to the pattern of the world. Amen

Bradford Bosworth

Find Your Gifts

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

(7th in a series)

Haiti Missionaries

1^st Peter 4:10

Jeannette and Ryan Karstensen

It is a monumental responsibility to lead a mission trip to a foreign land. The people who will be the recipients of your charitable efforts will most likely gain a lifelong impression from the team’s comportment. If there is a language barrier, then our demeanor and body language speaks for our faith. On this Haiti Mission trip, there are eight folks from three different Churches with two on their very first excursion. The bottom line is “God has given us some special abilities,” and it is up to us to make them blend and become faithful stewards of God’s Grace in all its forms.

Our repasts together, breaking bread, are always a time to coalesce once again. Tuesday our team was having lunch together and I presented them with Jeanette and Ryan’s scripture passage from 1 Peter. We went around the table and each member of the body reflected on how the Word spoke to them. I took notes as they shared. The Holy Spirit translated as follows:

The mission becomes our great commission when the true goal is “to make disciples of all nations,” (Matt. 28:19).  As the “Body of Christ,” each one of us is a single chapter in Yahweh’s epic novel of grace titled “Humankind.” The mission now becomes a gifted quilt made of individual scraps, throwaway fabric that now stitched together warms each soul it comforts. Our unique gifts manifested become a tapestry of colors woven into Abba’s glorious creation of Love in His Son Christ Jesus.

Often it is through our willingness to serve and at the point of our Christian action where we begin to discern what are the gifts we have received from our heavenly Father. Surely for us to keep and maintain those gifts we must give them away.

Father, may we always remember your precious gift of grace can never be earned and we will always be engulfed by it as we give it away. Amen

Bradford Bosworth

Not Forgotten nor Forsaken.

Sunday, September 24, 2017 (fourth in a series)

Haiti Deaf Academy

Deuteronomy 31:6 and Hebrews 13-5

Joyce and Michael Newsom

I often subscribe to the belief that we, the American people, are the same as the Israelites, God’s chosen people. Our ancestral pilgrims settled in a promised land, a land flowing of milk and honey. Oh how evident it is that we have forgotten from whence we came. But, you know what? These Haitian people, they too are God’s chosen people. Maybe they have just not found their Moses yet nor crossed through their Red Sea. Do you want to know something? These people are strong and courageous!

A few days ago our team arrived here on the heels of four ferocious hurricanes that passed by this island also known as Hispaniola. It is as if God has said to these people, I will not forsake you, my children, you have enough on your hands now and I have some of my other children who need a wake-up call! I’m not sure if Joyce and Mike intended it? A link exists that ties these two pieces of scripture together across a millennium or more. Moses’ exhortation, “Be strong and courageous.” is repeated by his successor (Joshua 1:9). In Hebrews, the writer is reminding his audience - Jewish Christians- that the covenant of Moses, carried forward by Joshua, has been superseded by the new covenant of Christ Jesus. Our presence here is now about the Love of Christ.

Our mission team’s humbly joyful interpreter/guides are mere boys content with what they have. Gel, Achka, Benson and Jhon are the vines bearing fruit that brings daily the new covenant Love of Christ to the poor. The chosen people of Haiti know the Lord has said to them, “Never will I leave you.”

Yahweh, through all the storms of our lives may we remember that nothing can separate us from your Love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen

Bradford Bosworth

Humbled in Haiti

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Haiti

Matthew 20:25-28 & Philippians 2:5-8

Brenda and Warren Taylor

In preparing for this reflection, the (NKJV) phrase, “But Jesus called them to himself” (v25), struck me.  This calling is not the type that screams, “Hey y’all, get over here.” No, it is the Way of Christ, a drawing to, a charismatic attraction, the magnetism same as the humble carpenter walking along the sea of Galilee beckoning to a few fishermen, “Come follow me.” Paul describes it this way in his letter to the church at Philippi, “Who being in very nature God” (V6, NIV). When we are called this way, we stop what we are doing. We “drop our nets.”

Our team left today for Haiti on a medical mission. Being the first time for me, I can only go by what I have heard from those who have gone before and before me. Do we already have the same mindset as Christ? Well, for me, I believe it is a lifelong quest.  When I listen to how our servant team describes their experience of past Haiti mission trips, I can imagine they came by their “same mindset as Christ” or a glimpse of that same mindset as a byproduct of the willingness of their servant’s heart. Does our humility come before the act of service? More, I believe, it comes from the very humble nature of those served: God’s children who inhabit this devastatingly poor and destitute area; a people hungering for the breath of the Holy Spirit to whisk them away if not just for a few affectionate, attention filled moments.  Indeed, it is these moments that humble our servant team and allow us to adopt, if only for an instant, the same mindset of Christ.

By the way, today’s gospel scripture repeats in Mark 10:42-44, which gives this truth lesson in humility a double shot of importance.  We have it on good accord that Mark was basing this journal of Jesus’s teachings on Peter’s own eyewitness account.

Yahweh, soften our hearts today, opening the windows of our soul and let the Holy Spirit whisk in a bit of Lord Jesus’ humility. Amen

Bradford Bosworth