Fear or Courage

Ken, Anna, Levi and Noah Bunney joined with our family last week and together we spent a week at Baan Puk Dek Nakrean. It was a wonderful week. We were able to teach English for three days to the children in the surrounding villages (actually it was more like a 3 day fun club for those familiar with the Walker Fun Clubs!). The leaders of the villages expressed many thanks to Connect for our involvement in the education of their children. Anna lead the way in establishing a more substantial vegetable garden and the students followed her enthusiasm (and Anna was spurred on by theirs). We played games and taught bible in the evenings. When we were not teaching we had time to sit and get to know the individual students at BPDN. We watched as our beautiful white children joined in the games of the beautiful brown children and vice versa – it didn’t take long for the white and brown limbs, the blue and brown eyes and the blonde and black hair to blend into one fantastic group of children laughing, teasing and loving each other. We were reminded again how significant this work is. For many of us, of late, our thoughts are on our finances...or perhaps more accurately...the impending lack of them! The world is certainly in turbulent times. Just recently we watched the movie, Amazing Grace, for the second time. In the movie William Wilberforce’s wife encourages him to continue in his fight to abolish the slave trade. She reminds him that because the war is over, people are less fearful and are rediscovering their compassion. This is a true enough statement, sadly. Fear quickly changes our focus to ourselves. We find ourselves saying ‘when this is over...when things are back to normal...when we are back on our feet...then we can think about others again.’ The problem however is that injustice doesn’t wait...hunger doesn’t stop...violence isn’t put on hold...and the hope to keep attending school doesn’t wane. So, it will take courage, real courage, to seek justice when everyone else is seeking to protect themselves. It will take courage, real courage, not to lose our compassion when fear is crouching close by. For those of us who live as Christ followers, boldly proclaiming that we trust in God...these are great times! This is when we get to test our faith. Courage or fear...fear or courage...