Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations,baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
Matthew 28:19-20
On Saturday Sept 28th, I had the privileged of taking some of my kids on a field trip. We loaded up the church van about 6am that morning and headed south to Lineville, Alabama. I had heard about this place through one of our homeschool co-op mom’s. Her and her daughter had been a few years before.
As a children’s ministry leader I am always looking for opportunities for my kids to learn how to flesh out the gospel. I want to expose them to all the different opportunities I can so that maybe, just maybe, a fire will be ignited within them at an early age with a passion for the great commission. I believe that we can raise Joseph’s and Esther’s and Daniel’s and Mary’s. I simply don’t buy our backwards American culture that says every child has to be a rebel without a cause with a past full of regrets being dragged behind them into adulthood. I believe rather that they can be a rebel against this culture with a cause… the cause of Christ!
My heart, while the Lord allows it to beat, is to teach every child (and every adult) that the Lord allows me to teach, to have a passion for Christ, a passion for His Word, and a passion for His people. I have such a strong desire to teach these children to see outside themselves and realize how big this world is and yet at the same time see that it is so very small… I want them to learn to be content with what they have and not live life for the next big thing, or new thing, or gotta have it thing, but to live it for the glory of God.
Needless to say, I was pretty excited when I heard about SIFAT, Servants in Faith and Technology.
The morning began with the introduction into what SIFAT stood for… our guide asked the kids, “What do you think of when you hear the word technology?” They began to respond with Ipod, Ipad, Xbox, DS, etc. Our guide then asked them, “Well, if you lived in a place where there was no electricity how much would this technology benefit you?” The kids quickly responded with, “It would only be good for one charge and then it wouldn’t be good anymore”
Hmmmm… have you ever thought about that? We pay hundreds of dollars for items that are completely worthless if they have no access electricity. There is no alternative use or worth for them. Apart from a plug, uncharged, they are just a piece of junk.
Anyway.
Our guide shared with the children that SIFAT works to create appropriate technology and brins it into these countries and areas that we were about to pretend to visit. She explained that appropriate technology was technology that was actually useful for the people where they were at. One of the examples that the children would see would be a smokeless wood burning oven…
Our trip began in the rural mountains of Bolivia:
The kids learned that the Bolivians lived in small huts, slept on blankets on dirt floors, and raised guinea pigs for food and farmed on the side of the mountains. They thought Bolivia was pretty cool…
Next we visited Guatemala and the kids got to make homemade tortillas and eat them!
So they thought Guatemala was awesome as well.
Next we visited the Philippines.
While visiting the Philippines they learned about tinikling…
We visited several other rural settings in several other countries. I believe we visited Uganda, Liberia, Nepal, and Malawi…
and the kids also learned about to make bricks for building some of the homes they visited…
I was beginning to wonder if they were going to get it.
You see all my kids are outdoors kids. These are farming kids and hunting kids and just get outside and play kids. They walked around these rural villages thinking they were the coolest “tree houses” and “club houses” they had ever seen. They were fighting over whose house was the boys house and whose house was the girls house. They thought all the woods and bridges and trees and walking sticks were great. They were a little unnerved by the lack of bedrooms and the fact that everyone was all in one room and they would have to share beds with their brothers and sisters, but over all. I could see their minds thinking that this would be like the most awesome camping trip ever. They were having a blast.
Then it was time for our last “village”.
The slums.
Our guide set all the kids down and explained to them what they were about to see. Then he shared with them that over one million people lived in slums, and these slums are found in every country in the world. He also told them that before they went in they were to walk through and think about the things that would be difficult about living here. He also shared with them that they were to be respectful, for many people, this was home. They were to refrain from being rude about the living conditions.
I was concerned before the children went in… I wondered how they would react…
The kids were quiet.
They walked through and you could tell they were thinking…
For the first time that day I believe it finally hit them. In this village no one was running in and out of the homes fighting over whose house was whose. There was no picking the girls house or the boys house. This was not a place they wanted to call home.
After they spent some time in the slums our guide began asking them questions about what he asked them to think about before they entered the village… and I loved hearing them answer because it showed they were really seeing.
I don’t know if this trip has planted a seed for the desire to serve in a foreign land in the hearts of any of these children… but I do pray that at the very least it opened their eyes to their abundance of so many things… so that when they hear of need they would meet it.
Our people must also learn to engage in good deeds to meet pressing needs, so that they will not be unfruitful.
Titus 3:14
Hopefully one day they will at least be able to decide that sending an orphaned child to a school that will teach them the Word of God and providing for their medical needs will be more important than that daily Starbucks stop. Perhaps they won’t grumble and call themselves poor and broke simply because they can’t afford that new car or that satellite upgrade.
Hopefully it was enough to plant a seed of awakening to the needs of others more than their own… Perhaps it will encourage them to be good stewards of the grace of God and His gospel… Perhaps it is a start in the end of the “me generation” and spark for a Psalm 24:6 generation…
This is the generation of those who seek Him,
Who seek Your face…
Psalm 24:6
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For more info on SIFAT click here: Servants in Faith and Technology