Not only hearers but doers

Our speaker yesterday was a physician who works as a medical missionary in India (his wife is also a doctor as are his three kids, talk about an overachieving family!). He and his wife left what I am sure is a very comfortable life in Ann Arbor, Michigan as well as their three children to spend their days providing medical treatment to people living in the rural areas of India, carrying medical supplies up paths in the wilderness for miles to get to a rudimentary building. Carrying supplies up mountains is one thing but when you add cobras to the mix? Yikes! It was pretty humbling to see someone who had every incentive to live out a comfortable life as a physician in America choosing instead to travel to his home country of India and spend his days caring for people in less than ideal conditions and taking the message of Christ to people who likely would die never having heard His name.

It is so easy to get caught up in the world around us and forget that vast numbers of our Christian brothers and sisters are living in a very different world than we do, a world without comfortable church buildings, gatherings designed more for convenience than safety, Bibles abundantly scattered around like confetti.

I feel like we need to do more in the community to help those around us. It can be a convenient dodge to play the eight kids cards, but really I spend a lot of time doing my own thing and I certainly could spare a few hours a week to help people in need. I would like to get involved in a crisis pregnancy center or something of that nature, or helping people who are homeless find employment. I have spent enough time being a hearer of the Word, it is high time I become more of a doer of the Word.