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A Giant Gecko
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The world is a big place, even though the speed of technological advance is making the world seem a lot smaller, the edges of the map have long since been filled in. But what about the people? There are still people who live within the four courners of the globe. They, too, have a right to know the truth... The full equation, the problem of sin and the answer that is Jesus Christ.
We don't have to go to some fancy missions school on the other side of the planet. Maybe our mission field is our town, or our street? Here's a challenge for you, maybe you should just smile at everyone who walks past. Maybe it's choosing to reach out to someone who's new, or you don't know. The possibilities are endless. We have been blessed, isn't it about time we bless others?
I was fortunate to grown up in a missionary family, in Uganda, East Africa. Not a lot of others get that opportunity. I was also extremely blessed to go to Brazil with an amazing team. One thing that I'll never forget is the heart broken man we met when we were there.
We first met this man within the first few days after arriving in São Paulo (a city of twenty four million people). We were paining a slum and he was helping us with mixing the paint, with his four young children running around and his wife nearby. After Christmas we went back to hear the painful news that this man's wife had been killed on Christmas Eve. We were shocked, but what made it even more shocking was that three of his four children had been taken away from him and he had only his oldest with him. We wanted to help. So we went round. After a while, and a bit of an argument between the man and the lady who's project we were working with, he let us in. The man we saw wasn't the same man. He was broken and angry, trying to drown his grief by drinking and using drugs. The place was a mess and the task seemed overwhelming. We couldn't walk five feet into his little place without having to climb over something, but we set to work. Two days later, we'd completely tidied his little house up. The community had rallied round to help. This man had also changed so much. When we came back a few days after we'd finished helping with the cleaning and tidying up of his little place, we were pleased to find this man had all his kids back and he wanted to come off the drugs and the alcohol.
Even if you can't touch someone's life by tidying up their home, maybe you have been given an idea that you can use to change someone else's life. You don't know could happen when you take a risk, but nothing will happen if you don't do anything.