Using My Imagination

Yesterday, my daughter Megan, who is 19, returned from a 10 day trip to India. This was her 5th trip, but her first without me. Our journeys to India began in December 2001, when she was just 11 years old. Since that time, I have made 12 trips, always with other family members. This year I made the difficult decision to stay behind in order to focus on our work in New York City. It was very painful to leave Megan at the airport knowing she was going to a place that God has used over the past decade to shape my heart. On our first visit I was moved beyond description by the poverty I witnessed, and particularly the orphaned and abandoned children who walked the streets. I could not believe what I was seeing, and felt like something had to be done. At the time, Jaya, our friend in India had taken in about 35 children. They were living in a building which provided shelter and food, but I found the conditions totally inadequate. I felt that this perhaps was why I was on earth…my purpose, to devote myself to helping the suffering children and the poor of this community.

In spite of major jet lag, Megan came to our Sunday evening Communitas gathering to share something that she believed God had shown her in India- something that she felt had a bearing on our work in New York. Before we returned to the states on that first trip we stood on a vacant piece of property and began to imagine how it could be put to use. Below is a picture I took as Megan along with Steve Andrews (lead pastor of Kensington Church) and his daughters Nancy and Helen walked the property. The only problem was that it had a hefty price tag and we had no money.




So yesterday, Megan shared with us the story from Exodus about God providing manna and quail as food for the Israelites after he had led them out of Egypt. There were a lot of hungry months to feed and absolutely no resources in the desert by which to feed them. But since God had led them, he would provide- and he did miraculously. She has read this passage one morning in India and related how she had reflected on this truth as she looked out over what now exists on that piece of property. The picture below was taken from the same vantage point just 3 years later.



What you see here are a dorm that houses over 200 orphans, a school with 150+ kids in attendance, a sewing school for women, a school for training young adults to plant new churches in the surrounding villages, and a medical clinic. It has been truly miraculous to see something spring up out of nothing. How did this happen? Simply put, God called us to step into this impossible situation, and he provided. And it is still growing as last week we laid the foundation for what will be a hospital offering free services for the poor.

For Megan, who has witnessed this transformation over the years, she saw concrete evidence that when God calls us to respond to an opportunity or a need, he will be faithful to provide. She related this to our current impossible task…planting a church in New York City. It is expensive to live here. It would require more resources than we could imagine. How could it be done? This is something I must confess I worry about. Can this really be done? The answer, Megan shared, was right before her eyes- a field once filled with nothing but garbage and animal refuse is now a place of life and hope in this needy community. So is it too difficult to imagine what God might have in store for Communitas in New York if we have the courage to obey and trust him? As Paul wrote:

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, (Eph 3:20).

I think its time for me to put my imagination to use.