Reflection from the field: Not in vain

I recently visited a Compassion project in a place far from the capital city where I live. It was a mountainous site, awkward to access, and while I was going up, I was thinking Everett Swanson (the founder of Compassion) would have never imagined that Compassion would be in a place like Los Montancitos.

And could he have imagined that today we would have more than 1.7 million children all around the world being released from poverty — all because he made the dream of God his own dream?

I think of the many men and women in the Bible who were like him. They were people who saw a need, not knowing that it was God who put it on their hearts to fulfill His purpose, His dream.

Nehemiah, for example, found out that his Jerusalem lacked walls. He was sad, wept, and prayed. He identified the need, organised a whole strategy, and undertook his dream of rebuilding.

In record time, just 52 days, the walls were finished, walls that would protect his city from future attacks from other nations.

I think about everything we see around us, the big needs and small needs. God, in His mercy, puts in our hearts that feeling of helping or doing something, and just like Everett or Nehemiah, we need to become owners of the dream and begin to work on it.

We may not know the significance that this will bring, but this is what we were called for. Here on this earth, we are the hands, eyes, and feet that He uses as instruments to fulfill His purpose and His dream.

“Because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain.” 1 Corinthians 15:58b

Prayer: Lord, at all times make us obedient to your call and sensitive to your voice, to do what you want to do in us and with us, always remembering that our work in you is not in vain.

By Marlene Suarez Espinosa, Dominican Republic