Bogota June 2011: Day 1

This week we will be focusing on Jesus as our hero.

I heard John Piper say something that changed my life. He said, “If admiration of the truly admirable is one of the greatest and rarest pleasures, and if Jesus is truly the most admirable being in the universe, then admiring Jesus is the greatest pleasure.”

I agree and I love nothing more than talking about Him.

Jesus is my hero…

I love the story of a former Taliban fighter who came to faith in Christ. He said, “I was attracted to the character of Jesus and wanted to be like Him. I thought if anyone should be God… if there is a God….it should be Jesus.” He has since led over 1000 Muslims to Christ and started 70 house churches in His country.

Here is an aspect of Jesus life and ministry that I admire…

Jesus the Missionary

Jesus left His country and came to ours…

The first gift that God gave us to demonstrate His love was His presence on earth in the person of His Son Jesus. Emmanuel… God with us. He could have written us a message in the sky but He chose to come to where we were and for 33 years to become one of us and live with us… John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” He gave us the gift of His presence and today we ask Him to use us to give these lonely, love starved children the gift of His presence in us.

Jesus came as a servant…

He could have come as a king… But He humbled himself, laid aside His glory and His rights. He stepped into our world and for a few moments in time. He became one of us. His mission was to adopt us and He came into the world as a fatherless child of a single teenage mother…

Phil. 2:5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,  6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,  7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.  8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

2Cor. 8:9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich.

Another hero from history who reminds me of Jesus the missionary is Hudson Taylor missionary to China. He adopted Chinese dress and hairstyle and his supporters in England were offended by it and cut off his support. He stuck to his guns and these stats reflect his legacy. In 1861 when he arrived in China there were 350 known Christians in China. In 1905 at Hudson Taylor’s death there were 18,000. When the communists kicked his ministry, the China Inland Mission, out of China in 1951 there were an estimated 1,000,000 Christians. Today there are an estimated 100,000,000 Christians in China and some analysts estimate that 20,000 to 30,000 Chinese are coming to Christ every day.

Today we get a chance to be our hero… We get to be Jesus… We get to be His hands and feet.

We climbed in the bus and headed for Santa Maria orphanage near Madrid. This facility houses 150 girls ages 8 to18. Some of us on the team have been here many times and it was a wonderful reunion as we climbed out of the bus and were thronged with little friends calling our names. Quickly the rest of the team was surrounded and led away to tour the grounds and make new friends.

My other Goddaughter, Heidy, is at this orphanage and I began to scour the grounds with my eyes looking for her. Suddenly I heard her little singsong voice calling across the complex, “Papi, Papi!!! She ran and jumped into my arms and we shared a few dozen “I love you-s.”

The morning and afternoon were spent in fun and games. Many just sat around visiting and enjoying the beautiful day. There was fingernail painting (which I fortunately escaped this time), sports of all kinds and more than a little horseplay. There was baseball, soccer, football, frisbee, ladder golf, and many other activities going on. Many discovered that love and happiness have no language barriers. They are their own universal language.

As is my habit I floated through the crowd and checked on each of our new team members and asked them how they were doing. One brother said with tears in his eyes, “I’m done. I know what God wants me to do.” Another said, “Don’t talk to me Matt Bullen or I am going to start crying.” Another said, “When are we coming back?” And I said, “tomorrow” and he said, “No, I mean when is the next trip!” All agreed that their lives were already changed. At one point Heidy sang me a beautiful daddy love song and made all the other girls squeal with delight and more than a few of the rest of us well up with tears. These are such beautiful children inside and out.

It was wonderful to see old friends again such as Pastor Lucas and his wife from La Libertad church in Bogota and Jose Vicente, the president of Fundacion Nuevo Mundo. I was so happy and surprised to look up at lunch and see Julie Dinkler and her daughters Brooklyn and Laura. Julie and her husband Chris are in Bogota adopting Laura from this very orphanage. They will be taking her home in just a few days. I’ll never forget Chris’s words the first time he came to Colombia with us. On the last day he said with tears running down his face, “The next time someone tells me they want to see Jesus, I am going to tell them that I know the address where He lives.” Now 18 months later they have a beautiful new daughter. Praise God!

In the afternoon we gathered everyone together and Jair got out his guitar and we sang worship songs and then Lilliana, the pastor’s wife from Bogota, shared a testimony about the amazing difference that Christ makes in your life when you commit to Him. Then we said our goodbyes but they were happy ones because they know that we will be back tomorrow. Tomorrow’s parting will not be so easy.

Every time I am here I gain a new appreciation and admiration for the man who said, “Permit the little children to come to me for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”