Do the little things

This last February I got to take a trip to Ottawa, to the National House of Prayer, close to Parliament Hill. It was an incredibly meaningful trip for many reasons. While I was in Ottawa, however, I had the most ragingly disgusting head cold. I don't even really need to describe it; just imagine the grossest head cold you've ever had, and mine was something like that. I spent several days just kind of miserably trying to breathe and concentrate enough to get what was going on around me.

Each evening after the teaching time our team would hang out in one of the rooms at NHOP and just chill together. One evening, this guy Brian just disappeared for a while. We didn't know where he was. I was lying in the room talking with two of the others, when Brian walked in, carrying a coffee cup from one of the local stores. He walked directly to me and put it in my hand, along with a box of packets of cold medicine. In the cup he had already prepared a packet of cold medicine with some hot water. As it turns out, he had decided to go for a walk in the freezing cold, and he had been praying for me, and, as he prayed, he remembered a Scripture, "If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,' but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead." As a simple act of obedience, then, he scouted around for a place to buy meds and a place to get a cup of hot water, and brought them back to me.

I can't even really tell you how deeply that simple action affected my heart. I so respected his basic act of obedience, and I still deeply respect him as a person, as I've seen him go out and do simple things just to help people. I thought getting that medicine and bringing it to me from the freezing cold was the manliest thing ever, and it encouraged me so much not just that night, but also for the past ten months since.

Last night at Young Adults we were given time to seek God in the church sanctuary, and he was sitting in front of me, so I finally took the opportunity to let him know what an impact his action had had. He told me about going and getting the cup, thinking about putting some extra change in the tip jar, and stopping because he felt like he might run into someone else who would need it. As he walked back toward NHOP, a man asked him for change. He gave the man his coins, and the man said, "Thank You, Lord." This almost never happens, and it was huge for Brian.

After I spoke with Brian, he said lots of things to me about my ministry here and what an encouragement it is to other people and how it touches so many lives. He compared his simple acts of obedience unfavorably with my more obvious ministry. Here's what I think, though: that one cup of water with medicine in it has helped keep me going for the last ten months. That one act of obedience has dominoed into every life I've touched; Brian has touched every one of those people. And Brian does simple things like that all the time, just obeying God. There's no telling how far his ministry reaches.

Brian told me last night that one day we'll see just how we touched lives, and how far that touch reaches. My encouragement to whoever reads is this: do the little things. Do the small acts of obedience. Don't think of anything, "That's too small," or "What I do doesn't matter." Five loaves of bread and two fish in God's hand fed at least five thousand people. One obedient servant girl led to the healing of Naaman. Whatever you're doing may seem humble on earth, but its ripple effect touches all of eternity when you put it in God's hands. "By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, and through it he being dead still speaks" (Heb. 11:4). There's no telling what kind of impact you may have, just by being faithful. Do the little things.

Praises

• We have had some new people attend our new church. We might also have found a place to meet. God seems to be opening some neat doors.
• I've been praying for someone who can play drums, and one of the guys who has been coming  to the church used to be a drummer. :)
• The Lord has allowed me to be around some really amazing people here in Canada. He has given me some incredible friends.

Prayer requests

• Please pray for wisdom for us as we seek a building and as we think and pray through what this church ought to look like as a multicultural, bilingual church.
• The Lord has put a dream on my heart of a space where my people group can be very much themselves, can sit and listen to their traditional instruments being played and can participate in much-missed cultural outlets. I've shared this with the team, and they seem to feel it too. Please pray for wisdom for us and that God would open this door however He chooses.
• Please pray for the Centre, for protection, continued provision, and wisdom in setting agendas and running the place. Pray for greater organization and a greater ability to reach out to the community.

-Jennifer