Taking the Love of Jesus Around the World

When my children were in Junior High and High School, I wasn't for sure what choices they would make when they left home. What role would God play in their life? Would they serve Him or ignore Him? I have to be honest and say that my daughter Brittne worried me the most. It was probably because she was more vocal. Every Sunday morning I would hear her standard speech about how when she is on her own she is not going to church every Sunday. It was always followed by, "And I am not going to make my kids go to church either!" I was pleasantly surprised when she found a church to attend her freshman year in college and helped to start a campus ministry. By her junior year she had decided that she wanted to go to a Christian university and enrolled at Southwest Baptist University in Boliver, Missouri. She declared missions as her minor and went on three mission trips to Mexico and one to Egypt before she graduated. Then she surrendered to missions her senior year and she felt God was calling her to the journeyman program with the Southern Baptist Convention. The following September God confirmed to her that she was to serve Him in Lima, Peru. She has been away from home for 15 months now. She has become fluent in Spanish and has traveled by bus, chicken bus, and foot to the uttermost parts of the Andres mountains and to minister to the villages and share the love of Jesus. She has gone 10 days without a shower and has been too cold to sleep. I am so proud of her. I am blessed that God has called her to serve Him in such a special way and that she is willing to be obedient no matter what the cost. However, there is another thing I am amazingly proud of her for. During her senior year in college, she adopted a little 10 year old boy, in Bolivia. She has faithfully sent $38 a month for his care. No matter what her income has been she has never complained about sending that money for him. She writes him and he writes her. She is making a difference in his life. For me, $38 is a casual meal out, or a new sweater. To her friend Omar, it gives him a school to attend and clothes to wear, and a friend to show him the love of Jesus. Since Brittne has been in Peru, I have had to type out the letters she receives from him and send it to her by email. He writes it in Spanish and draws her a picture, and the Compassion organization translates it to English for her. Now she would rather read it in Spanish but I do not type Spanish very well so she gets it in English. His letters have moved me on more than one occassion. In one letter, Omar writes:

Dear Brittne Thompson,
Hello! I send you greetings. First I thank you for the letter you sent me, Congratulations!! You are talented to learn spanish. In answer to your questions, I am fine. Bolivia is doing regular and it is turning cold, sometimes it rains and others we got up and down with ice. My family is fine. I like to cook rice with meat. It makes me happy to know your brother’s wedding was nice. What is the name of the town where you work? It is sad to know you left your friends in Guatemala but you can make new friends in your job, I will keep being your friend. My favorite biblical story is Noah’s. How do you cook “Enrollado de canela” I don’t know it. I want to tell you something. Please come to Bolivia, maybe it is too hard. I’d like to meet you. Thanks because I have a friend who is always thinking of me, who always works as to the Lord, I love you so much and I hope to have your news soon with love.
Omar

What a blessing she is to him and what a blessing he is to her. Brittne has plans to see him before she leaves South America. One of Brittne's gifts from me this Christmas is something she has asked me for more than once over the last two years. I am adopting a child to honor her and to do my part in taking the love of Jesus to the ends of the world.
We might not be able or be called to move around the world and serve God in the foreign mission field, but we can reach out to one child. What are you doing to take the love of Jesus to your community, to your state, to your country, and to your world?

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Acts 1:8

If you would be interested in sponsoring a child, visit http:www.compassion.com/sponsor_a_child.