Newsletter for Thanksgiving 2008

Dear Friends and Family,

The four Bates sisters grew up with periods of homelessness and despair. Their mother is a pleasant person, but she struggles with drug abuse. During the bad times, there was no food, no lights, no gas, and strangers hung around their home. Because they benefited from government housing assistance, a social worker made an annual inspection of their home.

A few years ago, a social worker inspected the home while the utilities were cut off and revoked their housing assistance. The oldest sister was in her early twenties, the second oldest was graduating high school, and the twins were in the middle of high school.

Instead of becoming homeless, the sisters banded together to rent an apartment and finish their education. The oldest began braiding hair at a salon, and the second oldest took temporary jobs and was finally hired as a government contractor. The twins worked throughout high school and will graduate this year. The four sisters created a stable home for themselves with their own income. This inspiring achievement shows an incredible amount of courage and strength, but the real beauty of their lives was shown by what happened this summer.

A few months ago, their mother went on a drug binge. She was walking on a road late at night and was struck by a passing car. She was thrown into the air, and the driver never stopped. After landing, she was struck by another driver. This driver stopped and tried to comfort her until the ambulance arrived. After being airlifted to the hospital, she was placed in intensive care for over a week. Her leg was amputated, and she lost almost all movement in one arm. While recovering in the hospital, her daughters were constantly by her side keeping her company and trying to ease her pain.

The sisters comforted their mother with joy and love. In fact, I have rarely seen such a happy family. It is beautiful. Now that the mother has been discharged, the sisters have moved her into their home and take turns caring for her. The care they give their mother is inspiring because they are not bitter or self-righteous. Because of your support, our ministry has been able to help them with a few expenses and some food, but these sisters seem happy regardless of what happens.

Dostoyevsky and John Paul II believed that, ‘Beauty will save the world.’ The witness of the Bates sisters is not beautiful at a superficial level. It is a story of injustice, sin, and failed responsibilities, but this ugliness is transformed by the sister’s forgiveness, joy, and love. This beauty is not the beauty of a lily. It is the beauty of the crucifixion.

We fall in love with beautiful things, and God is the most beautiful. But to understand His beauty, we have to understand the beauty of the crucifixion. The witness of the Bates sisters has a similar beauty to the witness of the crucifixion, and when we stand in the presence of this beauty, we are ashamed. We are ashamed because of all the times we were unloving, unforgiving, merciless, or ungenerous. They shame us because they are bigger people than us. They are bigger people not because of toughness or will power. They are bigger because of Christ’s grace flowing through their humility, faith, and love.

Sin makes ugly. God makes beautiful. A favorite saying amongst the people we serve is ‘God don’t like ugly.’ I once corrected a woman by saying, ‘God loves ugly people too.’ She told me that I had missed the point, and she completed the saying ‘God don’t like ugly. God don’t like pretty. God likes righteous and holy.’ Sometimes I wonder, ‘who is the real missionary here?’

The goal of Christian missionary work is not to make people adopt a set of ideas like a Republican or Democrat trying to grow their party. Although beliefs and dogmas are necessary to keep religion from becoming a game of make-believe, they are not enough for salvation. Even the devil knows dogma, but he does not understand the beauty of God.

The goal of missionary work is to demonstrate God’s beauty and help people to fall in love with Him. When religion is reduced to merely a set of ideas, it is no longer the relationship where we give ourselves to God. It becomes a self-justification project. Justification goes by many names (legalism, pride, proselytizing…), and it is the enemy of true religion. We must become like little children in order to enter the kingdom of Heaven. We should not aspire to the knowledge of a child but to the love and humility of a child.

News

Gemel Lamont Williams was murdered. Our ministry has known Gemel for over three years. We have visited with him, prayed with him, and helped him out when possible. Gemel was 27 years old and prayed with our missionaries the day he died. Please pray for him, and thank you for making this ministry possible.
The ministry welcomed and trained six new full-time missionaries (photo).
Because of your generosity, 175 bags of school supplies were distributed to school children.
The entire ministry went on a trip to Kansas City, MO to start rehabilitating the new Simple House of Sts. Stephen and James (see insert).

Hopes and Needs

A Thanksgiving outreach is planned to feed over 150 families. We do not yet have the money or food for this outreach.
We hope to open the KC house in January and staff it with five missionaries. Besides financial support, the house still needs a washer, dryer, beds, furniture, and kitchen supplies.

Thank you for being a blessing to this ministry,

Clark Massey